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North Indian Inscriptions |
SUPPLEMENTARY INSCRIPTIONS The script is Nāgarī and the record appears to have been in a local dialect. The purport cannot be made out. The inscription refers itself to the reign of the illustrious Dhārāvarsha, whose name is fortunately preserved in l. 4 in it. It is dated, as we read in the beginning of it, on the 3rd day of the bright half of Śrāvaṇa in the (Vikrama) year 1276. The probable equivalents V. 1276 the surrounding years are ; Northern V. 1276 current : = Friday, 27th July, 1218 A.C. Northern V. 1277 current : = Tuesday, 16th July, 1219 A.C. Northern V. 1277 expired : = Saturday, 4th July, 1220 A.C. Northern V. 1275 expired : = Friday, 27th July, 1218 A.C. None of these equivalents shows the week-day to be a Monday, as mentioned in the inscription ; and, in view of the second of these alternatives, which is of course the nearest from the point of view of the week-day, I am inclined to think that the true equivalent seems to be the 15th of July, 1219 A.C., when the third tithi commenced on it at .35 of the day and ended at .41 moment of the next day, on the 16th. But nice the object of the inscription cannot be made out, I can give no reason why the day should have been joined with the tithi which commenced on it. The importance of the epigraph under study is that it shows the western most limit of the dominions of Dhārāvarshā, evidently the Ābū Paramāra ruler, since it is the only record found so far of his time in the adjoining tehsīl Rēodhar. The record is also important from the point of view of its date. Before its discovery the last known date of Dhārāvarsha was supplied by the Kāṇṭal inscription dated V.S. 1274 (1216 A.C.)[1] and the epigraph under study extends his reigning period by about three years. The next certain date that we know is V.S. 1277 (1221 A.C.) when his queen Sṛiṅgāradēvī was looking after the administration of his son Sōmasiṁha[2] whose earliest known date is furnished by the Ābū inscriptions of V.S. 1287 (1230 A.C.).[3] Thus we may presume, of course hypothetically, that Dhārāvarsha died some time after July, 1222 A.C. and was succeeded by his son Sōmasiṁha who was a minor at that time and the administration of whose kingdom was conducted by the dowager queen Śṛiṅgāradēvī for about 7-8 years, particularly during the time when the kingdom was threatened by the Sōngirā Chauhāns from the north, as we know from the Bārlūṭ inscription of V.S. 1283 (1226 A.C.).[4]
The only geographical name appearing in the record is Makāvāla (l. 6), which is evidently the place where the inscribed stone was found.
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