Epigraphia Indica Vol 28

SR No.: 032582
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1949
Total Pages: 526
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 31 MB

Page 266

No. 32] TWO INSCRIPTIONS FROM JAJPUR
181 an old Oriya gentleman named Chandrasekhar Das who is a poet and an inhabitant of Sivadasapura forming a part of the Jajpur town. Mr. Das kindly led me to the site which was found to be not far from the Virajā and Trilochana temples at Jajpur. Of the Hansēsvara temple only the plinth and the floor and the lower part of the side and back walls could be seen. There was no trace of the front wall, the upper parts of the other walls and the roof. A rectangular piece of black stone, bearing an inscription, was found embedded in the inner side of the existing lower part of the back wall. It appeared to me that the stone actually belonged to an earlier temple whose materials were utilised in the construction of the Hamsēkvara temple possibly on the same site after the former had become dilapidated owing to the ravages of time. The ruins of the Harsēsvara temple lie on the bank of an old tank now almost dried up. Mr. Das informed me that the whole area had been formerly covered with a dense jungle which was cleared some 20 years ago.
The inscribed stone is rectangular in shape. There is a margin of several inches to the left of the writing ; but the right side of the stone is broken and there is no margin to the right of the inscription. The lower end of the stone seems also to be broken off ; but it is difficult to say anything definitely on this point. The inscription is thus fragmentary with portions lost at the end of all the extant lines, and possibly some lines of writing row missing totally. The inscribed face of the stone, as it now stands, contains altogether eleven lines, each measuring 11.5". An examination of the verses inscribed on the stone shows that an equal number of aksharas have been broken away from the end of all these lines. Thus the inscribed stone seems to have been originally at least double its present length. Single letters are about 5" in height.
The characters employed in the inscription belong to the East Indian type of the Northern Alphabet and may be ascribed on palaeographical grounds to the seventh or eight century A.D. Some of their characteristics are the same as those of the early records of the Bhauma Kara dynasty of Orissa. Of initial vowels, the inscription employs a (line 10), ā (line 2), i (lines 3, 5, 6), i (line 6) and u (line 1). Medial u has two different forms. In many cases it resembles its late Devanagari form (cf.or=avatu in line 1,om=bhuvi in line 5, odbhutam in line 8, etc.); but in a few cases (cf. kulādbhut=eo in line 2) it looks almost like medial ū (cf. vyrabhüd=ao in line 4 and od=bhushitam in line 7). The form of medial au in od=Bhaumao in line 2 is interesting to note as it has an ornamental birð-mäträ besides the two prishtha-mātrās. Of final consonants we have only m (cf. lines 7, 8). The lower part of subscript y is ornamental and considerably long and it covers the space below several preceding aksharas. In the passage friman-Madhavaděvy=ao in line 4, the subscript y in vya covers the space below the five preceding aksharas. The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. It is composed entirely in verse. Interesting from the orthographical point of view is the wrong spelling in vidhvansanah for vidhvamsanah in line 2. Final m has usually been changed to the nasal of the class of the following consonants (cf. tulan-Kaio in line 7, nivasan=tëna and dēvyān=gatā° in line 10). Consonants like m and ņ have been reduplicated in conjunction with preceding them.
The existing portion of the fragmentary inscription contains no date. But as will be shown below, it refers to king śubhākara I of the Bhauma-Kara dynasty, who may be assigned roughly to the third quarter of the seventh century. The date quoted in the Neulpur plate issued by this king cannot be definitely deciphered; but the Dhauli cave inscription of his second son Santikara I is clearly dated in the year 93 of an unspecified era. The era used by the Bhauma-Karas is now usually identified with the Harsha era of 606 A. D. and consequently the date of the Dhauli cave inscription would vorrespond to 699 A. D. As Subhākara I was succeeded first by his elder son
1J. K. H. R. 8., Vol. II, p. 103. *Above, Vol. XV, pp. 1-8, and plate ; Miara, op. cit., pp. 1-7. Abovo, Vol. XIX, pp. 263-64 ; Migra, op. cit., p. 11.