Epigraphia Indica Vol 11

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 15

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XI.
purports to have been framed on a date which is utterly incompatible with the period to which its characters refer it. As, however, it states (apart from the date) nothing that is in any way unnatural, suspicious, or irreconcilable with the local history for its true period, we may accept the information given in it as trae. It deals with a thing which it calls būdagal. This term is composed of būdu, a kulwu-form of the Sanskřit bhūta, 'a spirit, goblin, ghost', and the Kanarese kül, küla, boileil rice'; and it denstes 'an offering of boiled rice to the ghosts'. Other names of the offering are bhūtabali and bhūtayajña ; also the word bali by itself, which is explained in Kittel's Kannada-English Dictionary as meaning, amongst other things, an offering to demons (especially also Durga or Kali), etc., performed by putting heaps of boiled rice, or by killing sheep, buffaloes, etc., and also men.' As a regular sacrifice, the offering ranked as one of the pañchamahiyajia or five great sacrifices': see, for instance, the Mänavadharmasastra, 3. 70. I have been told, however, that in a more special way the thitabali is offered in connexion with the garbhädāna or ceremony performed to ensure conception. I further learnt from the late Sir James Campbell that the bhūtabali is offered in cases of barrenness, from the point of view that that misfortune is due to the influence of maliciqus spirits. And we thus obtain a clear explanation as to why the record represents the village-maidens as interested in the matter of the būdual. The inscription mentions a certain Mahāsāmantadhipati or great fendal prir.ce named Santivarman, who was governing the Banavāsi twelve-thousand province. It describes him as belonging to the Mātura race, and no baving the hereditary title of "supreme lord of the town Trikundapura", with reference to the place of origin of his family, and as possessing the Nandanavana umbrella, the horse crest, and the mirror banner. It recites that Santivarman came, in the course of a tour, to Palarür, and demanded a supply of grass for bis horses and elephants. For some reason not stated, the right to make the offering of boiled rice to the ghosts was in abeyance; apparently under a sentence of excommunication. Incited by the village-maidens (kodagüsngal, line 11), who said that, if be could get the restriction removed, he might marry as many of them as he might wish, a man named Allagunda cut & supply of glass so much to the satisfaction of Santivarman that the latter offered to grant him a boon. Wherenpon Allagunda asked for, and obtained, the restoration of the right to make the offering to the ghosts. As to whether the villagemaidens kept their promise to him, the record is silent.
The inscription is dated on a Monday conpled with the second tithi of the bright fortnight of Blargasira of the Kalayukta sa moalsra, Saka-samvat 522. This date, however, is obviously not authentic: and all else that need be said about it is as follows. By the mean-sign system, which is the one that applies for that time, Kalayukta began on 29 October, A.D. 600, in Saka-sativat 522 expired, and ended on 25 October, A.D. 601. In that period, the given tithi onded closely about 22 hours 15 minnts after mean sunrise (for Ujjain) on Sunday, 13 November, A.1), 600, and cannot be connerted with the Monday. And from this we see that the case is not one in which the writer of the record obtained a correct date by calculation.
As one means towards determining the real date of the record, we may cite some other notices of the Maçara family, to which the record refers the Jalisin antadhipitti Santivarman. We have ono mention of it in the Sravana-Belgola epitaph of the great Ganga prince Noiarubintaka-Marasiriha (A.D. 963-64 to 974), which describes him as seiving the possessions of the lord of the Vanväsi country, and causing him or those who belong to the Mātūra race to do obeisance to him axty, vol. 5, p. 179). No personal name, however, is mentioned there. Some other notices of the family, of a specific nature, from other records in Mysore, are as follows:
(1) An inscription a Hechche in the Sorab taluka, Shimnga District: Epi. Carn., vol. 8,
I The Udavēodirom plate of Pallavamalla Nondivorman allot a "mirror banner malo of (? put together with) peacock's tail to the Sahara king Udayana : South Ind Insert., vol. 2, p. 372.