Epigraphia Indica Vol 06

SR No.: 032560
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 482
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 24 MB

Page 12

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
VOLUME VI.
No. 1.- AIHOLE INSCRIPTION OF PULIKESIN II. ;
SAKA-SAMVAT 556.
BY F. KIELHORN, PH.D., LL.D., C.I.E.; GÖTTINGEN, This inscription is on the east side wall of an old temple called Mégati, at Athole in the Enngand taluks of the Bijapur (formerly Kaladgi) district. It was first edited, with a photo-lithograph, by Dr. Fleet in Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 67 ff., and a revised version of the text and translation, with an improved photo-lithograph, has been given by the same scholar, ibid. Vol. VIII. p. 237 ff., and Archæol. Suro. of West. India, Vol. III. p. 129 ff. I re-edit the inscription at the suggestion of, and from an estampage supplied to me by, Dr. Fleet himself, who was anxious to publish the accompanying photo-lithograph which is the first true facsimile of this record. In common fairness I am bound to state that Dr. Fleet's edition, published more than twenty years ago, was an excellent piece of work, which has been of great assistance to me; and I would wish it to be understood that I consider any improvements in the reading or interpretation of the text which I may be able to offer, to be mainly due to the rapid advance of Indian epigraphy, brought about to no small extent by Dr. Fleet's own exertions.
The inscription contains 19 lines of writing, of which nearly the whole of line 18 and the short line 19 apparently are a later addition of little importanoe, which may be left out of consideration in these introductory remarks. The writing covers a space of about 4/91" broad by 2' 1" high; it is well engraved, and generally in an excellent state of preservation. The size of the letters is between 1 and f". The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets; they are of the regular type of the characters of the Western Chalukya records of the period to which the inscription belongs. Of initial vowels, the text contains the signs for a, 4, i and , and of the signs of the ordinary Sanskrit consonants, all excepting dh; but chh, th and the rare jh (in =ôjihati, 1. 7) occur only as subscript letters. The alphabet also includes the signs of the jihoamiliya (.g. in Ravikirtti-kavitá- at the end of line 17), the wpadhmaniya (e.g. in yol-prabhavahepurusha-, 1. 1), and the Dravidian (e.g. in Málada, 1. 11, and pulina-,
8e0 Rovind Liste of Antiquarian Romaine Bombay Pres., p. 188.
• It is strange that one of the published paleographic Tables sbould give a single instance of the southern form of jl from an inscription. The form of the subscript j used in the prowent inscription is almost identical with the one employed in the first Cambodian inscription in the word Mila in line 7. Iweer. Samoritu du
Cambodge, p. 18, and Plate), the alpbabet of which in other respecte essentially differ from that of the Western Chalukya inscriptions.