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No. 37.]
INSCRIPTIONS FROM YEWUR: C, OF A.D. 1105.
No. 37.-INSCRIPTIONS AT YEWUR.
BY LIONEL D. BARNETT.
(Concluded from p. 298.)
C. OF THE TIME OF VIKRAMADITYA VI: A.D. 1105.
This inscription is on a stone in the garden-land of Chikkira-Ramappa, on the north of the village. At the top of the stone there are sculptures: towards the centre, the sun and moon, and below them, from left to right, two stan ling figures, a cow and calf, and a crooked sword or dagger. The writing covers a space about 1' 6" wide by 3' 11" high, and is for the most part very well preserved: but there has been slight damage at the ends of lines 25 to 28.
The characters are Kanarese, of the regular type of the eleventh and, twelfth centuries: their shape is intermediate between the somewhat slender sloping character of the previous generation and the upright rounded forms that appear soon afterwards. Their height varies slightly, being approximately" to ". They are fairly well formed; but in some cases (viz. lines 32 and 43) letters have been omitted and afterwards added below the line.-Except for one Sanskrit verse at the beginning and two at the end, the language is Kanarese, in pros+, and practically in the medieval form of development: note the nominative plural in aru (instead of ar) in lines 16, 17, 18, 24, 32, and the locative in alli, lines 28-29, 33, against a freer use of the endings of and al. We may note the word kammi (line 30), denoting a measure of area; neither kamma nor kamba, which appears in some other inscriptions, is known to Kittel's dictionary.
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The object of the inscription is to record the grant of certain lands in the neighbourhood of Yewür, houses, an oil-mill, and a customs-duty to be levied in kind on the sale of areca-nuts, for the upkeep of a local temple of Kesava (Vishnu); and it was issued by Satyaprachara Bhaṭṭāraka Dēva, apparently a pontiff of a (? Vaishnava) sanctuary at Yewar, in the reiga of the Western Chalukya king Tribhuvanamalla-Vikramaditya VI. The General Raviyana-bhaṭṭa and the god Isapesvara, mentioned in this record, are already known from the Yewür inscription B, of A.D. 1077 (p. 269 above).
The details of the date of this inscription are: the cyclic year Parthiva, being the thirtieth year of the Chalukya-Vikrama-kala, i.e. of the reign of Vikramaditya VI; the new-moon of Margasira; Somavara (Monday). Dr. Fleet gives me the following remarks:-"Like so many dates of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, this date is irregular; that is, it does not work out in satisfactory agreement with the stated details, the discrepancy here being in respect of the week-day. The Parthiva samvatsara in question began, as a Chaitridi lunar year according to the southern lunisolar system of the cycle, on 18 March, A.D. 1105. The given tithi, the new-moon of Margasiraha, answers for that year to 8 December, on which day it ended at about 9 hrs. 47 min, after mean sunrise (for Ujjain). But that day was a Friday, whereas the record specifies a Monday."
The only places mentioned are Ehur, i.e. Yewar itself, and the Sagara three-hundred, in which district the record locates Ehur. For some remarks on this district see above, p. 272 f.
TEXT.1
1 [Namo] bhagavate Vasudevaya | Pamta vo Nara
2 simhasya nakha-Jathgala-köṭaya[b] Hiranyakasipo
1 From the ink-impressions.
2 Metre: Sloka (Anushtubh).
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