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

Page 324

No. 34.]
PATHARI PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF PARABALA,
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3 inches high and 2 feet 9 inches square. On the northern face there is a long inscription of 38 lines of small letters. It opens with an invocation to Lakshmi-Narayana, but the greater part of the record is so much worn as to be quite illegible. Many of the letters here and there are in good order, and from their shapes I would assign the monument to somewhere about A.D. 600. Close by this pillar there is a small temple, with Vishpu sitting on Garad over the door-way.'
In October 1894 I received from Professor Haltzsch two impressions of the inscription, prepared by Mr. H. Consens, Saperintendent of the Archeological Survey of India, Western Circle ; and an excellent photograph of it, taken by the same gentleman, was given to me two or three years afterwards by Dr. Fleet. From these materials I have already published a short account of the contents of the inscription and the tentative text of nine verses of it, in the Nachrichten der K. Ges. der Wissenschaften su Göttingen for 1901, Part I, p. 519 ff. A repeated examination of the same materials now enables me to place before the reader, with some confidence, by far the greater part of this record, which, though troublesome to read, is not so illegible as it may have seemed to be on the original stone.
The inscription contains 38 lines of writing which covers a space of about 2 feet broad by 2 feet 7 inches high. It has certainly suffered greatly from exposure to the weather, especially in the middle and at the end of the lines all the way down, and for nearly the whole length of the last seven lines. But fortanately all proper names of importance may be read with absolute certainty, at any rate all those that occur in lines 1-31; and the same remark applies to the date of the inscription at the end of line 31. The size of the letters is about 4 inch in the topmost lines, but less in the lower part down to line 31, while it is somewhat larger again in linos 32–38. The inscription was written and engraved with great care and skill. The characters belong to the northern alphabet such as, speaking generally, we find it e.g, in the Gwalior inscription of the reign of Bhô adeva of the (Vikrama) year 933, published with a facsimile in Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 159 f. With our present knowledge of Indian epigraphy, we should assign them at once to about the 9th centary A.D. They include the rare sign for jh, which has not come out well either in the impressions or in the photograph, in the word jhatiti towards the end of line 15. The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. The text is remarkably correct, and in respect of orthography the only points worth noticing here are that the sign for u is need for both v and b, and that the words ainsa and dhvamsa are written ansi and dhansa, in lines 2 and 8.
The inscription consists of two parts. The first (and chief) part comprises lines 1-31, the second lines 32–38. This second part appears to be really a separate inscription, added by way of a post script, which may record the installation of an image of Vishņa, but the exact purpose of which, owing to the damaged condition of lines 32–38, I have not been able to ascertain. What I may state with confidence is that, after the words rin namah at the commencement of line 32. there are five verses, two in the Sragdharâ metre, one in the Vasantatilaká metre, one in the Upajati metre, and the fifth perhaps in the same metre. So far as I can judge, the first and probably the second of these five verses contain some historical information, and it would therefore seem desirable to have a cast taken of this part of the inscription, which would enable one to decipher more of the text than I have succeeded in making out from the impressions and the photograph.
The first verse of the inscription commencos with the words Lakshmi-nIrandhrapina, which were apparently misread u Lakshmi Narayana.
1 The nocomposing facsimile has been prepared un ler the saperintendence of Prof. Hultzsch from Mr. Cousens photograph. A facai mile of the impressions would have been quite useless.
Erposed as the pillar has been to all the effects of the Indian climate for more than thousand years it oms wonderful that of these small letters, which were not deeply engraved, many should have been proerved so well as we find them to be.
I am sanguine enough to hope that it will indeel some day he possible to make out the names which are hidden now in the second part of our insoription. It will then perhaps also be found that this part likewise ends with a date in the 9th century of the Vikrans era, of which in my opinion there are traces in the second half of line 38.
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