________________
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIII.
and there is a soparate and somewhat later record of two lines below it. The writing in lines. 1 to 5 occupies an area about 2' 31" broad by 11" high. It is well preserved and quite legible all through.
186
The characters are Kanarese, boldly formed and well executed and, though the record is a little later (at any rate certainly not earlier) than the inscription H above it, they are markedly more archaic than the characters of that record; in this respect we may compare the case of the Nilgund inscription of A.D. 866,1 the characters of which are decidedly more archaic than those of the Sirür inscription of exactly the same date. The size of the letters ranges from about in the n of idan, 1. 4, to 1" in the b of baniyam, 1. 3: the rovu of pārtvuman, 1. 5, is about 33" high. Of the test-letters kh, i, j, b, and 1, the does not occur the others show here, again, a mixture of the earlier and later types. The kh occurs once, in 1. 1, and is of the later, cursive type. The j occurs twice, in 1, 3, and is of the earlier, square type. The b is found three times, in one case subscript, in 11. 1, 3 : in all three instances it is of the earlier, square type. The occurs four times, in 11. 4, 5, and is in each case of the later, cursive type: its subscript form does not occur. We have an initial short i of the earlier type, in idan, 1. 4; and a final n in bitton, 1. 3. The cerebral occurs twice, in vedenga and nadavuttu, 1. 2, and is distinguished clearly from the dental d: it has the form which is used to denote the aspirated dh in the Soratür inscription G above.
The language is Kanarese prose, of the archaic dialect. Here, again, in 1. 3, we have the collective neuter mahajanam; and we have twice the dative in ke, instead of kke in kalegake, 1. 2, and mahajanake, 1. 3 (compare p. 184 above). In 1. 3 we have a word bani, the sense of which is not clear: it is given in Kittel's Dictionary as a Mysore word meaning 'substance, essence, as of grains, milk, butter, or vegetables. The short later record below this one gives the word paṭṭagara, apparently as a Kanarese adaptation of paṭakara, 'a weaver'. In the title Kishkindha-puravar-esvara, "lord of Kishkindha a best of towns" (1. 1), we have a term pura-vara, a best of towns' (found also in various other titles of the same class, and often followed by adhiśvara instead of isvara), which calls for notice only because of the way in which it is always treated wrongly in another series of epigraphic publications :3 that the word rara belongs to pura, not to isvara, and is used in the sense of best, most excellent, or eminent among', is made quite clear (even if a knowledge of Sanskrit usage is lacking) by the fact that the Sravana-Belgola epitaph of Marasimha II mentions, in its list of the places at which he fought and conquered, Manyakheta-puravaravuṁ, " and Manyakheta a best of towns "5
The inscription does not mention any king, and is not dated, but is plainly to be placed a short time later than the inscription H which stands above it. Its object was to record that some local personage styled Turagaveḍenga," he who is a Marvel with Horses ", i.e. in the training and riding of them, who was of the Bali-vamsa race and had the title of "lord of Kishkindha a best of towns", when going out to battle laved the feet of a Mahajana named Santayya, and gave the bani to the body of the Mahajanas of Rōņa.
The record does not disclose the proper name of the person whom it mentions by the biruda of Turagaveḍenga. It represents him as belonging to the Bali-vamsa or race of Balin, and as having the hereditary title "lord of Kishkindha a best of towns". Bälin was the elder brother of the monkey-king Sugriva, the friend of Rama, and seized and held for a time Sugriva's capital Kishkindha, on the Kishkindha mountain, while Sugrīva was
1 Vol. 6 above, p. 102, and Plate.
Vol. 7 above, p. 205, and Plate,
Even in the latest volume of that series, Coorg Inscriptions, rv'sed edition (1914), we find Kovalalaparavar-isvara (p. 31) mistranslated by "boon lord of Kovalala-para" (p. 52).
The combinations dvija-vara and muni-vara occur freely : for other instances, including pur-tura itself from the Ramayana, see the St. Petersburg Dictionary under vara 4.
Vol. 5 above, p. 178, 1. 100.
