South Indian Inscriptions

INCRIPTIONS OF THE KALACHURIS OF TRIPURI

and submitting to him by listening to his commands, you should pay all royal dues such as bhāga, bhōga, gold and others to him as you paid them (to us in the past). None should trespass with a view to harm him.” In this matter there occur the (following) holy verses:-

(Here follow six benedictive and imprecatory verses.)
(L. 49) This has been written by the Karanika, the illustrious Sarvānanda and engraved by Vidyānanda. (May there be) bliss and good fortune !

No. 51; PLATE XLI
REWA STONE INSCRIPTION OF KARNA : (KALACHURI) YEAR 800

THIS inscription was discovered by Dr. N. P. Chakravarti, Government Epigraphist for India, at Rewa, the chief town of Vindhya Pradesh in 1936. The slab, on which it is inscribed, is now lying in the guard hall of the old palace at Rewa. It is said to have been previously built into a wall of the Zenānā Mahāl of the same palace, from where it was removed a few years back and preserved in its present place. The inscription was edited by me for the first time in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIV, pp. 101 ff. It is edited here from two excellent estampages kindly supplied by the Government Epigraphist.

The record is incised on a large slab. The inscribed surface measures 7' 2" broad and 3' 1½" high. As shown below, the inscription was originally put up at a temple of Śiva and seems to have been brought over to Rewa from somewhere else.^¹ The record has suffered considerably on the right and left hand sides and especially in the lower portion comprising lines 23-31, in which, in some places, only a word here and there can be read with confidence. Even in other parts, where it is better preserved, the mātrās, the anusvāra, the sign for the superscript r on the top of letters and the horizontal stroke in the body of sh have, in many cases, disappeared. The inscription consists of thirty one lines and falls into two parts which are separated by an ornamental figure in line 19. Except for the obeisance to Śiva with which it seems to have opened, and a few words recording the date at the end, the whole inscription is in verse. The first part of it, which eulogizes the reigning Kalachuri king Karna and his ancestors, comprises thirty-three verses. As many as twenty-two^² of these occur in the Goharwa plates of that king.³ In many cases, therefore, the damaged letters of the present inscription can be easily supplied from the latter record. The second part, comprising verses 34-59, contained a legendary account of the origin of the Kāyastha caste as well as the genealogy of the minister of Karna, who founded the temple of Śiva at which the present inscription was set up. The mutilation of a considerable portion of the record in this part is very much to be regretted, as none of the damaged verses are known to occur anywhere else. We have, consequently, lost not only an account of the achievements of the minister and his ancestors, but, except in one case, even the names of all of them. Besides, the present record, had it not been so badly mutilated, would have thrown much welcome light on the notions current in the eleventh century A.C. about the caste of the Kāyasthas. As shown below, the mutilated condition of the present record makes its evidence doubtful.
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¹In his report for 1935-36 the Government Epigraphist has conjectured that ‘the slab might have been brought from Gurgi like so many other inscriptions and statues which are now lying in the State Treasury or in the compound of the Prince’s Palace.’ A. R. A. S. I. for 1935-36, P. 89.
²Viz., verses 4, 6-18, 20-22, 24, 26, 30-32.
³Above, No. 50.