North Indian Inscriptions

SUPPLEMENTARY INSCRIPTIONS

The incisions are not deep, excepting in the commencing and the concluding portions, which also show the chisel-strokes on the other side. The inscription has also suffered from corrosion and oxidization, particularly in the middle of ll. 7-14 and also in the lower left corner, and consequently, a number of letters and their parts, with their subscripts and the signs of anusvāras and mātrās, have either totally disappeared or are damaged. The writing consists of 23 lines, the last two of which, containing the sign-manual of the king, are inscribed in the lower left corner. Besides these, there are two lines along the top and one in the left margin, which are all completely corroded, leaving one or two aksharas here and there, appearing as containing names which were engraved some time subsequently. In the right-hand margin too is incised a line, repeating in figures, the year, which has already been given in the main inscription, as we shall see presently. The size of the letters ranges between 1 and 1.5 cms. in the first five lines, but it is reduced to about three-fourth of it, in the rest of the lines which are incised most slovenly.

The record is written in the Nāgarī script of the tenth century. The characters, though closely resembling those of the Nanyaurā copper-plate inscription of Dhaṅgadēva, which was incised only five years before, also mark the transitional stage between those of this plate and the one issued by Dēvavarman and found at the same palce.^[1] Noting the palaeographical peculiarities of the writing, we find that the letter ṅ in Dhaṅga in l. 1 is written without the dot ; ch ; y and v are often alike in form ; and dh is devoid of its horn on the left limb. The syllable t occasionally occurs in its old form also, as in datvā in l. 6 ; and the palatal sibilant in almost all cases begins with a short stroke with a loop in the middle, as in Paramēśvarain l. 2.

Most of the letters, particularly the conjuncts, are imperfectly formed ; and due to the carelessness of the writer and also of the engraver, many of them appear so much alike in form that it is difficult to distinguish between them, for example, between ga and va, as in Gaṇḍa and -śvara, both in l. 2 ; between ya and va in Vidyādharadēva in the same line and also in line 5 ; and between n and t in pitṛi and manushya in l. 5. Too often it is not known whether a vertical stroke is intended for a daṇḍa, which is so often redundantly put throughout the inscription, or for a sign of mātrā, particularly after a geographical or personal name ; and consequently, all the names, which are several in the record, cannot be read with confidence. Often the mis-formed or lost aksharas have also to be conjecturally supplied, for example, it is not known whether in l. 19 the name has to be read as Uddāka or Uddāma.All these difficulties, which baffle the efforts of a decipherer of the record, are noted below, in the footnotes appended to the text.

The language is Sanskrit, and except for one customary imprecatory verse in the end, the record is all in prose. The orthographical peculiarities are almost the same as to be found in the Nanyaurā grant referred to above. For example, the sign for v is put throughout to denote both v and b ; the palatal sibilant is used for the dental in sahaśra, l. 4, and Vājaśanēya, l. 10, but not in the same word in ll. 8 and 9. The consonant following r, and also often preceding it, is usually doubled, as in tayōr = mmātā¸ l. 4 , and in puttra and gōtra, so often figuring in the record. The pṛishṭha-mātrās are generally used, except in a few instances. Besides these, we find the unnecessary use of the sign of visarga after –dhyāta in l. 1, and tri in l. 7 ; the change of anusvāra to m in samvat and samvatsara, both in l. 4, and violation of sandhis throughout the record, particularly in the formal portion thereof. The rules of grammar and syntax are also occasionally violated, and most of the personal names, with those of the gōtras, pravaras, etc., are put without case-endings and are also separated by marks of punctuation, which are, on the other hand, omitted where they are really required. The sign of the mātrā is often detached from the letter to which it belongs, and in several cases it appears as a mark of punctuation. Besides all these, some unnecessary strokes of the chisel make the task of the decipherer indeed a difficult one, as already observed above.

The inscription belongs to the time of the Chandēlla king Vidyādhara who is mentioned in it with the royal titles Paramabhaṭṭāraka, Mahārājādhirāja and Paramēśvara, with two of his predecessors, viz., his father Gaṇḍadēva and grandfather Dhaṅgadēva, with almost the same royal titles. This purpose of the inscription is to record the grant to some Brāhmaṇas the (produce of the) village Isaunī, situated in the Vāraṅgi-84. The language giving the names of the donors in
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^[1] Above, Nos. 100 and 107, respectively.