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162
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
for (the requirements of) worship, fifty garlands-málá 50- of such market flowers as are available at the particular season.
(20—23.) These above-mentioned gifts were made by the above-mentioned town, &c., from their property for as long a time as the moon, the sun and the earth exist. Nobody shall cause obstruction to the present owners). For (Vyása has said) : [Here follow two of the usual minatory verses].
XXI.-SIYADONI STONE INSCRIPTION.
BY PROFESSOR F. KIELHORN, Ph.D., C.I.E.; GÖTTINGEN. In the Journal, Beng. As. Soc., vol. XXXI, pp. 6-7, Dr. F. E. Hall had occasion to mention "a huge inscription," existing in some part of the State of Gwalior, a transcript of which, by a native, had been made over to him by Colonel (now General Sir) Alexander Cunningham. From the apparently very imperfect copy supplied to him, Dr. Hall was able to report that the inscription in the opening lines mentioned a king Mahendrapala. Near where he is spoken of, was the date 960. Next came Bhoja, and then Mahendrapala again, with the date 964. Further on Kshitipala was mentioned ; and, after him, Devapala, the date 1005 being close by. These dates, ac. cording to Dr. Hall, were not sufficiently particularized for one to certify their era by calculation. Besides, the kings of the record were stated by Dr. Hall to have been memorialized as having granted land and other things, by way of local donaries, in ten several years, ranging from 960 to 1025. According to Sir A. Cunningham,' the actual site of the inscription was then unknown, and it has remained so for twenty-five years after
wards.
In 1887, Dr. Burgess, when in the Lalitpur district of the North-Western Provinces, learnt that there was a large inscription at Siron Khurd,' about ten miles WNW. of the town of Lalitpur, Long. 78° 23' E., Lat. 24° 50' N. (Indian Atlas, quarter-sheet 70, NW.) And the inscription was found on the east of the village at which it had been reported to be,-and which in the inscription itself is called Siyadoni,-on the bank of the Kherår stream, in the precincts of a Jaina temple of Santinátha, where it had been recently set up by a Bania. It turned out to be the huge inscription mentioned by Dr. Hall; and I now edit it from impressions supplied to me by Dr. Burgess.
The inscription consists of forty-six lines; and the writing covers a space of about 5' 21" broad by 3' 4" high. Of the first two and the last two lines large portions of the writing have either gone altogether or become illegible, by the flaking off of the edges of the stone; and from the same cause some aksharas have become illegible in lines 39-44. But the preservation of lines 3-38 is perfect almost throughout, so that here the actual reading of the stone hardly admits of any doubt whatever. The size of the letters is about ". The characters are Nagari of about the eleventh century; down
Seo Journ., Beng. As. Soc., vol. XXXIII, p. 227.
: The inscription (or rather Dr. Hall's short account of it) has been referred to by Dr. Hörnle, in the Centenary Revies, Beng. As. Soc., part II, p. 208; and by Mr. Fleet, in the Indian Antiquary, vol. XV, p. 108, note 18, aud vol. XVI, p. 178, who bas pointed out the desirability of rediscovering and publishing the inscription.
