Epigraphia Indica Vol 09

SR No.: 032563
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch, Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1907
Total Pages: 498
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 28 MB

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. IX.
No. 24.-SIHAWA STONE INSCRIPTION OF KARNARAJA.
THE SAKA YEAR 1114.
BY HIBA LAL, B.A., NAGPUR. This inscription is on a slab built into the wall of the Karnêsvar, vulgo Kandsar, temple at Sihawa, the principal village of the tract of that name in the Dhamtari tahşil of the Raipur District in the Central Provinces. It was first noticed in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. p. 505, and it is referred to by General Cunningham in his Reports, Vol. VII. p. 145. The place does not seem to have been visited by any archæologist. The inscription was brought to notice by the District officials, who thought it sufficient to ascertain the date, and the full contents of the record have hitherto remained unknown. I therefore edit it from an ink impression supplied by Mr. Gokul Prasad Isvardas, Tahsildar of Dhamtari, from which a reduced facsimile is reproduced in the accompanying plate.
The inscription contains 16 lines covering a space 22" x 13)". The letters are bold and well formed. They are all intact excepting one which is broken off in line 2. Their average size is about 4". The script is Nagari, and the language is Sanskrit. The whole of the inscription is written in verge, except the invocation in the beginning, Om namah Sivaya, and the name of the sútradhåra at the end. There are altogether 13 verses, 4 in the Vasantatilaka metre, 8 Anushtubhs and one Upajati.
The following are the principal orthographical peculiarities :-s is almost invariably used for 8. The sign of the avagraha is not used at all (see lines 3, 4 and 15). Letters following an anusvára changed from a nasal are doubled (lines 2, 10, and 13). Letters with a répha are sometimes doubled and sometimes not. Instances of doubling may be seen in lines 1 and 15, and of non-doubling in lines 2, 3, 4, 5 and 11, while lines 8, 9, 10 and 14 afford instances of both. In conjunct letters n has been used instead of the proper nasal as in panchakaṁ and punyatah in lines 12 and 15. Simha is spelt throughout as singha, following the usual valgar pronanciation, and, finally, in line 1 the vowel si is used instead of the ri, tritaya being written as tritaya.
The object of the inscription is to record the construction of five temples, two in his parents' name, two in his own, and one in his inspeless brother's, by king Karnarkja of Kakaira, and of one by his wife, queen Bhopalla-devi. These were all built at the sacred place Dévahrada. The date of the inscription is given in the last verse as Saka 1114, without any other details as to the day or month, etc. The inscription was accordingly written in the year A.D. 1101-92, apparently after the completion of the whole group of temples, and it was put up in one of the king's own temples, in which Siva was enshrined. The other one of those which he had built for himself was dedicated to Kebaya, who apparently occupied a secondary place in his estimation. The temple in which the slab is found, is still called Kanesar or Karnešvara, after the king's own name. The writer was the sutradhára supe, and the composer of the prasasti Nrisimha.
The inscription opens with an invocation of the three-eyed Siva, and in the second verse the moon, as the progenitor of the dynasty, is praised. Then begins the genealogy of the king, commencing with Simharaja, whose son was Vågharåja, from whom was born Vopadeva, the father of Karparkja, who married Bhopalla-devi, and who, having conquered all the neighbouring