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240
AN EARLY HISTORY OF ORISSA
is a space before almost every proper name. The smaller spaces indicate clauses of a sentence. As a matter of fact, the stops have added more complications in the present state of the record, because they have changed the very meaning of words at many places.
Authorship
Now, with regard to the authorship, Jayaswal' says that there is evidence to prove that the inscription was composed by some one who was elderly, who must have seen Khāravela as a young lad playing about, for he describes him playing before his 15th year 'with majestic body of fair-brown complexion'. “In the Council of Ministers,” adds Jayaswal "without whose approval the inscription could not have been published, there would have been some elderly men, who, by virtue of their office and age, could make a paternal reference to Khāravela's childhood.” Dr. Barua? says that the concluding paragraph is so designed as to make the record appear as closed with the name of king Khāravela-siri, that is, to create the impression that the record is written and signed by the king with his own hand.
Composition
Coming to the question of composition, Barua writes that the concluding paragraph clearly brings out the fact that Khāravela's autobiographical epigraph was composed for him by a skilled composer, to whom the task of composition was entrusted. The composition must have received the warm approval of His Majesty before it was incised on the rock and set up on its hanging brow, wherefrom it might attract the attention of the visitors and
1. JBORS, vol. III, 1917, p. 452. 2. OBI, p. 176. 3. OBI, pp. 179.80.
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