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No. 14.]
KANKER INSCRIPTION OF BHANUDEVA.
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district, but is now limited to an area of 1,429 square miles lying between 20° 6' and 20° 34' N. and 80° 41' and 81° 40' E.
As regards the buildings and tanks mentioned in the inscription, there can be no doubt that the two tanks are identical with the present Diwan and sitala taldos, between which the ruins of the temples may still be seen. It is very probable that the Sitala talko- & name which gained currenoy since a hut dedicated to the goddess Sitala was constructed on its bank-is the Kaudika-bandha of the inscription, the unnamed tank being called Diwan talo or
minister's tank, thus keeping up the memory of its original constructor, who by calling it a tadaga apparently distinguished it from the bandha, i.e. the tank formed by merely damming ap & stream. The very name Kandika-bandha indicates its secondary importance. In the first place it was merely a bandha (dam), and secondly it was probably constructed by the payment of kaudikas, & Sanskritised form of kaudis (cowries) or shells, & currency of the lowest value.
The temples and buildings have all fallen or been pulled down, and from the materials a fresh temple was constructed by the predecessor of the present chief. The old temples were seen by Mr. Fisher, who was Deputy Commissioner of the Raipur district (to wbich Kanker was formerly attached) about 1873 A.D., and he alludes to them in his private Journal' thus : “Saw some very curious old temples to the west of the village; one has a bijak giving, as I was told, some particulars of its history. They are very old and utterly neglected now." This bijak was seen on the gate of the Mahadeva temple about the year 1825 es recorded in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. p. 505, where its date is also stated, which is the same as that of our inscription in all details. A noteworthy point in our inscription is the mention of the construction of a puratóbhadra with a pratóli, about which latter Dr. Vogel has written an article in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, July 1906, p. 539. He has proved that pratóli really meant a gate-way, evidently strongly built and of considerable height. It was sometimes provided with a flight of steps. I have not been able to find puratóbhadra in the Kôšas to which I have aCOo8g, but sarvatóbhadra is described as a kind of house with 4 doors facing the 4 quarters. From this I infer that a puratóbhadra was a building with only one door in front. And the Kiksira puratóbhadra was actually furnished with a gate-way (pratili).
1 In this part of the country & good deal of transactions were done in cowries (shells, Sanskrit kapar. dikd), which are still used as currency by the poor people. It must not however be supposed that there were no coins bere. In the copper-plates of Pamparajadêvs alluded to before, the coin tanka of local mint finds # mention. It is still & practice in some places to get work done, chiefly digging and throwing of earth, by what is called kaud thai, & mode of piecework payment, 2 or 4 cowries or more according to the labour involved being paid for each basket of earth thrown out. A man with cowries stands at a place where the earth is to be thrown, and as each labourer torns up and throws down the earth, he receive immediately the fixed number of cowries each time. This mode of labour automatically punishes the idlers and have a good deal of supervision and account-keeping where a large number of labourers are engaged simultaneously on such & work.
· Quoted in Cunningham's Archeological Reports, Vol. VII. p. 147. . Dr. Fleet'. Gupta Inscriptions, p. 43. . The idea seems to bave been taken from a sarvatóbhadra village, which is described in the Manasdra, book of the highest authority on Hindd architecture, as "& town or village of quadrangular form, containing in the middle temple dedicated to one of the triad, Brahma, Vishņu or Mabevara. It has 4 streets of equal length on the 4 sides at right angles, and more crossing each other in the middle. Between these may be formed 3, 4, 5, or as many more streets as the extent of the village will admit, on each side, parallel to the middlemost street. Without the walls should be placed the shrines of the deities who preside over and defend the several quarters of the village ; at the angular points should be erected balle, porticoes, colleges and other pablio edifices, and towards the quarter of Agni (south-east) . watershed for the accommodation of travellers and passengers. The whole village shonld be secured by « quadrangular wall and a ditch around it, with 4 lnrge and as many small gates in the middle of the sides and at the angular points Without the northern rate sbould be erected a temple for the worship of Mabikalt, and the bats of Chandklas or outcastes should be . krofa distant from the village. A tank or reservoir should be constructed either on the south or north side or near either of these 2 points for ablutionary and culinary purposes."-See Bam Baz's Architecture of the Hindua, 1884, p. 43.
