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852
EPIGRAPHIA INDIOA.
(VOL. XII.
As regards orthography, we may note the following points :-(1) As remarked above, the record uges v for b throughout, in the few cases which are involved. (2) The dental sibilant is found very often for the palatal one ; and this has entailed many corrections, though, in 0808 of doubtful readings, I have given the benefit in favour of the record having the right sibi laut, for 8 as the case may be : this feature is perhaps due to carelessness in writing or engraving more than to any orthographical peculiarity. (3) Except in nd, a Dasal in combination is very often represented by the anusvāra ; and we have such contrasts as raig., line 10, against rariga, line 8, and paricha, line 23, and panchadasyam, line 34, against pafchabhir, line 53 : on the other hand, we find the nasal used, where the anusvāra would have been quite correct, in samvatsar., line 33 (against samvatsara in the same line), and in samvyavahar, line 40, and (in sandh) in truyan-tēna, line 31, dattam=vd, line 54, -aksharam=vā, live 59. (4) Consonants are useally doubled after r ; but we have in even the first line kary@shu, against sarvva.
The inscription is a record of the Mahimandalēšvara or great feudatory prince Chhittarājadēva, a member of the family of the Silahāras of the Northern Konkan: and the object of it is to notify that he gave to a Brahmap a field at a village named Noura. Verses 3 to 11, lines 3 to 16, present his pedigree, but are of no interest except for the names that they give; they do not add any historical details: it may be noted that verses 1 and 2, and 3 to 9, are verses 1 and 2, and 4 to 10, in the Thāga plates of A.D. 1017; and verses 1 to 3, and 7 to 9, and 11, are found again as verses 1 to 3, 10 to 12, and 17, in the Khårēpāta, plates of A.D. 1095. Verse 3 claims the mythical Jimitavāhana, son of the Vidyadhara king) Jimatakētu, as the founder of the family, whence Chhittaraja has the title, among others, of " born in the lineage of Jimütavāhana" (line 17). But the first historical name is that of Kapardin I, in verse 4. The pedigree, as given in this record, is shown on the opposite page : for a continuation of it, and for dates and further information, reference may be made to my Dynasties of the Kanarest Districts, in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. 1, part 2 (1896), p. 538 ff., and to No. 302 and subsequent entries in Professor Kielhorn's List of the Inscriptions of Southern India: regarding the names Pulasakti, Vappuvanna, and Kēsidēva see notes to lines 5, 8, and 14 of the text.
The family-name is presented in line 5 as Silāra, with the dental (perhaps by mistake for the palatal 6); in line 15 as Silārs with the palatal & (perhaps by mistake for the dental ); and in line 17 as Silahāra, with, certainly, the mistake of 8 for 4. It is a moot-point whether the original form was Silahāra and Silära or Silāra was a corruption of it, or whether silábára is only a Sanskritized form of a vernacular name: in either case, however, the form Silahāra means " food on a rock," with reference to the " lofty rocky slab," " the rock of execution or Bacrifice," of the story about Jimatavahana, Garuda, and Sankhachūda, to which allusion is made in verse 3: about this, see note 2 on p. 265 below.
1 For these two records see the next note, No. 306 and 309. The record on the This plates hse after its verse 2 another verse invoking Sive Again.
* The full references for three of these records, which I have consion to mention several times in my remarks. may be given here: they are :
No. 305: the Bhidina grant of Aparajitadöva, dated in A.D. 997: edited, with facsimile, by Professor Kielhorn in Epi. Ind., vol. 8 (1894-5), p. 271.
No. 806 : the Thans plates of Arikësaridovs (the Kēsidēvs of the present record), dated in A.D. 1017: translation, with part of the text (as far, perhaps, as the end of the first plate), by Ramalochana Pandit in Asiatio Researches, vol. 1 (1788; fifth edition, 1806), p. 857: see also p. 269 below.
No. 809: the Kharőpatap plates of Anantapkla-Anantadēva, dated in A.D. 1096: edited, with a lithograph, by Mr. K. T. Telang in Ind. Ant., vol. 9 (1880), p. 83.
Elsewhere we have the following forms: Silārs (with the dental and short() in a record of A.D. 1008, Kielhorn's Southern Llat, No. 801; Siyalara in a record of A.D. 1068, ibid., No. 316. Mailabira in A record of A.D. 1110, d., No. 817; and Selars and Silahára (short a in the second syllable) in two recorda of the tenth and the eleventh or twelfth century, see ibid., No. 94. Dote 4
