Epigraphia Indica Vol 16

SR No.: 032570
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: F W Thomas, H Krishna Sastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1921
Total Pages: 474
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVI.
in tracing it; at length, however, it was found lying in a verandah in the circle in front of the palace."'! For some time previous to its transference to the Museum the stone used to be kept in the State Printing Press at Junagadh. The misfortunes which have fallen to the lot of this stone since its recovery did not end with those described by Burgess. As a result of some fresh accident, it is now in two halves, probably having split along the fissure which is noticeable in the facsimile published in the Bhavnagar Collection of Sanskrit and Prakrit Inscriptions, and referred to in the letterpress accompanying the facsimile.
The inscription is engraved on one of the faces of a dressed slab of soft calcareous stone about 2 feet each way and 8 inches thick. The epigraph contains four lines of writing, covering a space of about 1 ft. 9 in. in width by about 6 in. in height. The average site of such letters a8 , m, P. and b is about " Much of the writing is seriously damaged. The two middle lines are in a fair state of preservation; but the greater pext of line 1 and a good bit of line 4 are illegible. Moreover the inscription is fragmentary. The slab has lost a large fraction of its length : how much it is not possible to say. Bühler assumes that lines 2-4, at their left ends, are almost intact, only a couple of syllables being necessary in each to complete them. This is, however, far from being certain. As far as we can judge, there is nothing to show how much is missing on either side of the preserved portion. We can only say that the lost portion of 11. 2 and 3 must have contained, at least, the names of the son and grandson of Jayadaman as well as the year in which the record was dated, expressed possibly both in words and numerical ideograms.
The characters closely resemble those of the Ganda inscription of the time of the Kshatrapa Rudrasimha, which have already been minutely described above. It will, therefore, suffice to draw attention here only to a few outstanding features of the alphabet of this inscription. The syllable më in 1. 3, it will be noticed, shows that the sign of : in mi was attached to the con stricted part of the letter. The same line offers a specimen of the numerical figure 5. The siga of the medial u in su (1.1) is seen to open towards the left; in fu (1. 3), on the other hand, it opens towards the right; of the medial » marked by a short horizontal stroke appended to the long vertical of a letter this inscription contains no specimen. We have here only one initial vowel, mamely i (1. 3) ; it is denoted by three dots, of which two are placed in a vertical line on the left side of the remaining one. In the middle bar, which is attached only at one end, is almost vertical. The letter y shows the simple bipartite form. [In regard to the language we may note the irregular genitives (e.g. kaha[trapa]sya, 1.-2) as in Inscriptions Nos. I and 11.-Ed.]
-As regards orthography the only point worth noting is that the inscription offers ng instance of the phonetic dog bling of consonants,
The inscription must belong to the reign of a Kshatrapa or Mahi-Kshatrapa who was the grandson (or rather son's son) of the king, Kshatrapa Lord Jayadāman, and great-grandson of Chashtana; the name of the ruling prince is lost with the portion of the record which is missing. This Satrap to whose reign the record referred itself was therefore either Dámaysade I or Rudrasimha I (the brother and successor of the former). The purport of this fragmentary inscription cannot be determined, as the portion containing the object of the record is lost. It may be added that from the occurrence of the expression kēvali-jñāna-san (prāpta] (who had arrived at the knowledge of the kēvalina') in l. 4 it may be surmised that the inscription probably had something to do with the Jainas, since the word kēvalin occurs most frequently in Jaina literature.
The inscription is dated on the afth (5th) day of the light half of Chaitra in a year which, like the purport of the record, cannot be ascertained, as it is lost in a lacuna of the text.
1 Arch. Suro. Wort. Ind., Vol. II, p. 140.