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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
(VOL. XXXIII
Verse 1 contains an adoration to the Sun-god, to whom the Paramasaura donor of the charter was specially devoted, while verse 2 introduces the Moon-god whom the Sena kings claimed as the progenitor of their family. The next stanza (verse 3) refers to the kings of the lunar race and Verse 4 introduces king Vijayasēna (c. 1095-1158 A.D.) as one of them. The following two stanzas (verses 5-6) describe Vijayasēna's might in vague terms. Verse 7 speaks of Ballälasēna (c. 115879 A.D.), son of Vijayasõna, while Lakshmanasēna (o. 1179-1206 A.D.), son of Ballälasēna, is introduced in the following stanza (verse 8). Verses 9-10 continue the description of king Lakshmanasēna. The second of these two stanzas may be translated as follows: "In hundreds of previous births, that king (i.e. Lakshmanasēna), leaving aside all care for his liberation, surely propitiated Hara (i.e. the god Siva), on the banks of the Suradhuni (i.e. the Ganges), being desirous of having & son. For this reason] (ētasmāt), the illustrious Visvarüpa, who was the head of (i.e. the foremost among) the celebrated kings and was determined to cause the widowhood of his enemies' wives, was born to him). Otherwise how could it be possible] ?" If the word ētasmät used in the stanza is taken to mean from this [king, i.e. Lakshmanasēna]', we may have the following in place of the last two sentences of our translation : "Otherwise, how could be born to this [king] the illustrious Visvarūpa who was the head of the celebrated kings and was determined to cause the widowhood of his enemies' wives ?" Thus king Visvarūpasõna is introduced in this stanza as the son of Lakshmanasēns and the verses immediately following must naturally be regarded as describing his achievements and not of his father Lakshmanasēna.
The second of the two verses 11-12 in the following description of Vibyarūpasēna state that the king planted sacrificial posts as well as pillars of his victories in battles at the following places (1) the coast of the Southern Ocean where there is the altar on which Musaladhara (BalarāmaSankarshana) and Gadāpāni (Vishņu-Kộishna) dwell ; (2) the site of Visvēsvara near the junction of the Asi, Varan, and Ganges; and (3) the banks of the Trivēņi. The three places referred to are no doubt Puri in Orissa, Vārāṇasi (Banāras) and Prayaga (Allahābād). Verse 13 mentions the queen of the same Visvarūpasēna. But the original name in three aksharas (uu-) following éri was erased and a new name in four aksharas was re-engraved in the space, the re-engraving also affecting the medial i sign of fri. The third and fourth of the four aksharas read devi; but the first and second of them cannot be deciphered because neither the original writing was fully erased nor were the re-engraved aksharas clearly incised and properly shaped. There is no doubt that originally the name of Visvarūpasēna's queen was engraved in the verse. But whose name was re-engraved after having erased the original writing? The answer to this question is clearly supplied by the next stanza (verse 14) in which the donor of the charter is introduced as born of the king and his queen mentioned in the previous stanza It is interesting to note that the aksharas visvarüpa are quite obviously re-engraved before sēnadevah in this verse in the space where originally only two aksharas were engraved. It is also to be noticed that the second of these two aksharas of the original name had a superscript r above it and that this sign was not erased apparently through oversight. Owing to the incision of four aksharas in the space of only two and to the presence of the superscript r above the second of the two aksharas originally engraved, the donor's name looks more like Visvarra than Visvarūpa. The two corrections in the names of the donor and his mother in the original writing of the introductory part of the Madanapādā plate show beyond doubt that the grant was originally made by the son of Visvarūpasēna and that Viśvarūpasēna's name was subsequently inserted in the place of his son's. As & result of these corrections arbitrarily made at a later date in the original composition, the reader is compelled to regard verses 11-12 as describing Lakshmanasēna even though this is quite against the trend of the composition and its original and real meaning. As we shall see below, there is further evidence in the grant
1 The son's name was in two aksharas and the metre of the stanza was originally Aryd. With the introduction of the bigger name of the father, the metre became Giti,