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No. 34.]
PATHARI PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF PARABALA.
31 H[aima]girija Sêsh-3ttamâmga kahitiḥ chamchachchandramarichi-[bhâsurajalâ ?] yavad-di[vi] svarddhuni [tâvat-kirttir aua]éva[r-âstu] [nripatêr= bhůmyâs-ta ?]lê śrimati [32] Samvat1 917 Chaittra-sudi e Su[kr] [] 32 Om2 namaḥ ||3
ABRIDGED TRANSLATION.4
(Verse 5.) There was formerly a king whose hands were marked with auspicions discs, who was endowed with fortune, and who, harassing haughty foes and powerful adversaries, was the support of the earth; who with his arm overthrew princes, who warded off hell and destroyed huge elephants,5 and who, although thus like Kamsa's enemy (Krishna) [whose hand bears a choice disc, who is united with Lakshmi, who harassed haughty foes and powerful adversaries, and supported the earth; who lifted up with his arms the mountain (Govardhana), slew (the demon) Naraka, and destroyed (Kamsa's) huge elephant], did not bear Krishna's body, the glorious Jêjja, praised by the noble.
(V. 6.) While he was king this glorious Rashtrakuta family was prosperous, a family in which there is pleasing progeny, which is without blemish, noble, large, and free from trouble being like the bamboo, which has pleasing shoots, is free from flaws, high, broad, and without thorns].
(V. 7.) His elder brother, having defeated in battle thousands of Karnâța soldiers whose might was increased by arrays of enormous elephants, obtained the broad Lâța kingdom.
(V. 11.) Jajja's son was the glorious Karkaraja, who, . . . . (causing) the destruction of the forces of adversaries, acquired fame in battle; who removed trouble [and was therefore] like (Yudhishṭhira) the foremost of Pritha's sons [who annihilated Salya]; and whose armies were terrible in chastising the forces of enemies difficult to be chastised [so that he was like Bhimasena subduing the strength of his enemy Dubsâsana].
(V. 14.) In a battle which was terrific by the collision with the multitude of the close arrays of the furious elephants of the irresistible enemy, where warriors rejoiced and the circuit of the regions was hidden by the dust from the hoofs of horses, where rows of pálidhvaja' banners were fluttering and the crowd of feudatories was inundated with streams of blood issuing from wounds, he at... 10 caused Nagavalôka quickly to turn back.
(V. 15.) The blade of his sword, with rows of spotless teeth formed on it by the mass of pearls that were shed by the frontal globes of the choice elephants11 of the irresistible adversary, exultingly laughs as it were in the devastated home of king Nagavalôka.
1 Read samvat.
2 Denoted by a symbol. On the second part of the inscription, lines 32-38, see above, p. 249.
I consider it sufficient to translate here those verses of the original text only which refer to historical events. The other verses will interest Sanskrit scholars only, to whom they will present no more difficulties than any ordinary classical text. A brief summary of the contents of the inscription has been given above.
In the case of the king the words tunga-dvipa might possibly have to be translated by "the elephants of (king) Tunga," where the name Tunga would perhaps have reference to one of the Rashtrakutas of Malkhod who had birudas ending in tunga (Sahasatunga, Subhatunga, Jagattunga, etc.).
For the figure virodha or viródhábhása, seeming contradiction,' used here by the poet, see above Vol. VI. p. 246, note 13.
The original has his (s.e. Jejja's) son.'
The word bhimasena is similarly used in a double sense, e.g. in the Vasavadattá, p. 122, 1. 5. For this word which occurs also in verse 24, see e.g. above, Vol. VI. p. 170 and Vol. VII. p. 227.
10 Here the original probably has the name of a place containing four syllables and ending with lavana
or lavana.
Compare in Journ. Bo. A. Soc. Vol. XVI. p. 107, 1. 5: nistrimsaghatavidalat-karikumbha-muktamukidphalaprakara-; also e.g. Situpdlavadha V. 12.
