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NAGPUR STONE INSCRIPTION
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line 24, tajñair for tajjñair, in line 35, and pidhadhvam for vid haddhvam, in line 41. The language is correct. It contains several uncommon words; but the only word which is used in a sense for which I can find no authority is brahmándakhanda, apparently denoting the vault of heaven' or the firmament,' in lines 5, 7, 11, and 13. As regards versification, the author has twice offended against an elementary rule of metrics, in line 3 of verse 28 and line 1 of verse 31. The style of the whole poem is highly bombastic and artificial, and the author has not without reason in verse 57) exhorted his readers to exert themselves well and to make their intellect sharp as the point of kuća grass.
The inscription is a Prasasti or laudatory account of the Paramára rulers of Málava, from Vairisimha (II.) to Lakshmadeva, the son of Udayaditya and (probably elder) brother of Naravarmadeva; but, compared with its great length, the actual facts reported in it are few indeed. Beginning with seven benedictory verses, the poet (in verses 8-15) tells the well-known fable how on mount Arbuda (or Abu) the sage Vasishtha, when his wonderful cow Nandini was being carried off by Visvamitra, produced from the sacred fire the hero Paramara, who defeated Visvamitra and became afterwards the founder of the royal family here eulogized. The first king of this family, mentioned by the poet, is Vairisimha (vv. 16-19). He was succeeded by his son Siyaka (vv. 20-22); and after bim came his son Muñjaraja (vv. 23-25), Muñjoraja's younger brother Sindhuraja (vv. 26-28), and Sindhuraja's son Bhojadeva (vv. 29-31). The description of these five kings is purely conventional and for the historian worthless. In verse 32 the poet intimates that Bhojadeva's end was unfortunate; and he relates that, during the troubles which then had befallen the realm, Bhojadeva's relative Udayaditya became king, whose great achievement was that he freed the land from the dominion of the Chedi) Karṇa who, joined by the Karnatas,' had swept over the earth like a mighty ocean (vv. 32-34). Udayaditya was succeeded by his son Lakshmadeva, the glorification of whom takes up no less than twenty verses (vv. 35-54). According to the poet's account Lakelmadeva subjugated the earth in all directions; but the only tangible and probably true facts mentioned are an expedition undertaken against Tripuri (v. 39), the well-known capital of the Chedi kingdom, and perhaps some fights with the Turushkas or Muhammadan invaders alluded to in verse 54, which speaks of the king's encampment on the banks of the river Vankshu, and contains a well-known play on the word kira,
To the above laudatory account verses 55 and 56 add, that Lakshmadeva, at the time of a solar eclipse, had granted, it is not clear to whom, two villages in the Vyapura mandala, and that his brother, the king Naravarmadeva, afterwards assigned the vil. lage of Mokhalapataka instead. Naravarmadeva, moreover, ordered (the architect) Lakshmidhara to build the temple at which this inscription was put up, and which is said to have been adorned with many eulogies and hymns composed by the king) himself. From this last remark I feel strongly inclined to believe that this prasasti, the author of which is not mentioned, was likewise composed by no less a personage than the king Naravarmadeva.
* The use of udbhaval in the first compound of verse 20, for udbhava, I ascribe to an error of the writer.
1 As Karna is joined here with the Karpatas, so the lord of Chedi apparently is joined with the Karnatus in the Udaypur Prakasti, ante, vol. I, p. 235, line 20.
* See, e.9, above, p. 15, Terho 12.
