________________
No. 24.]
KHAIRHA PLATES OF YASAHKARNADEVA.
TRANSLATION
OM! Om ! salutation to Brahmi
(Verse 1.) Glorious is (the god) whose navel is a lotus (i.e. Vishnu), glorious is the lotus which is his navel (and) glorious is (the god) born from that lottus (i.e. Brahma). Glorious also is his offspring Atri, and glorious is the friend of the ocean who took his birth from Atri's eye (i.e. the moon).
(V. 2.) Now the king who is the swan in the lake of the expanse of heaven (i.e. the moon) begat as his offspring Bodhana, the son of (that) primeval king (rāja i.e. inoon) (and) son-inlaw in the honse of the friend of lotuses (i.e. the sun).
(V. 3.) This son of the god who is the elixir produced from the seven seas obtained, as the son of his own body, Paräravas, who had both Urvasi and the earth here for his faithful wives to be enjoyed by him with their hundreds of unrivalled blessings.
(V. 4.) In this family forsooth was born Bharata, whose pure fame is proclaimed by the Yamuna, hemmed in by more than hundred posts of horse sacrifices offered by him), Bharata, who delighted in the welfare of the earth, made lovely, by the ornament, the jewelled girdle of the seven seas.
(V.5.) Highly glorions is in his family that Kärtavirys who, thongh he had no need of them, wielded with ease every weapon, (and) who allowed the title of king (rāja) only to the Moon, the ancestor of the family of these Haihaya princes.
(V. 6.) Resembling the Himalaya, the lord of mountains, that lord of princes begat the Kalachuri race, which is purified by rulers of spotless conduct, as (the vañéa, bamboo) with pure round pearls.
(V. 7.) In this family was a prince, foremost of the prudent, who purified the town of Tri, puri so that it was like Indra's City-Yuvarājadēva, who destroyed the lords of princes blinded by passion, as a young lion does powerful infuriated elephants.
(V. 8.) The chief ministers of that ruler of the earth placed on the throne his son Kökalla, a lion-like prince, the progress of whose armies, consisting of four parts (viz. ele phante, chariots, horsemen and soldiers on foot), was checked (only) by their encountering the masses of waves of the four oceans.
(V.9.) That lord having gone far away, his fame shows like a forsaken woman; deriding white sandal, it reproves the lustre of the moon, and is a reproach to a string of pearls.
(V. 10. His son was Gangēyadēva, a thunderbolt falling on the heads of enemies (and) the lord of the fortune of heroes, with a chest broad like an emerald tablet, (and) with smiling eyes, (and) with his two arms surpassing the length of a city bar.
(V. 11.) The crest jewel of crowned heads, he became famous under the name of Vikramā. ditya, wishing to run away from whom with dishevelled hair (the king of Kuntals) who was deprived of his country came to possess it again.
(V. 12.) When, fond of residing at the foot of the holy fig tree of Prayaga, he had mana salvation there together with his hundred wives, his son Karpadēva honoured the quarters with the pearls from the frontal globes of the majestic elephants of his enemies, cleft by his sword.
In the first 24 verses I have adopted Dr. Kielhorn's excellent translation of the Jabalpur plate, with such alterations as the clearer and better readings of this inscription have necessitated.
The meaning of the second line of this verse is very obecure. The writer evidently plays on the word kuntala and has brought about what is called viröd häbhasa wben he says akuntalah kuntalatan babhara, 1.... hairleus person bore hairinens (an apparent contradiction). The enlogist evidently seems to convey that Gångöyadēvs was to noble that he restored the Kuntals country to its king who was defeated and was running swsy with dlshevelled hair ( second pun on the word akuntala).
