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No. 9.]
THE BEZWADA PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF YUDDHAMALLA.
The record is in a good state of preservation, except that the first syllables in lines 3 to 6 on the second face of the pillar are missing owing to the stone being slightly damaged there. The letters are an inch square on the average and quite legible; the lines are 14" apart.
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The record on the second face has to be read from the bottom upwards. This method of engraving inscriptions is not usual, but is met with in a few other cases. It seems to be an imitation of the writing on palm leaves, where the lines run along the length of the leaf and the beginning of each succeeding page is contiguous with the end of the preceding one. This mode of writing is also found in old Sanskrit paper manuscripts, and it is even now imitated sometimes in printing Sanskrit books-especially religious books-on loose sheets.
The characters are of the Eastern Chalukyan type of the time of Yuddhamalla, to which the inscription belongs. No inscriptions of this king have, it is true, so far been published; but a copper-plate grant of Chalukya-Bhima (I) has been published (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. V, pp. 127 ff.), and I have in my possession another grant of the same king. The writing of these grants closely resembles that of the present inscription in regard to the formation of the characters, and there is no doubt that they belong to the same period. The shape of the characters (lipi) has a great bearing on the question of the age of the inscription, and I will revert to this presently. The talakaṭṭu, or secondary form of the short a, is a short thick line, and the long a is represented by an extension of this line to the right with a downward bend at the end (pa and sa in 1. 1). Sometimes the downward bend is extended to the bottom of the letter and then turned to the left and extended in a line parallel to the top line (ga of yaka in 1. 12 and kā of kachu in 1. 33). The short i takes the form of a complete circle attached to the top of the letter, while the long i is an incomplete circle with a loop on the left-hand side (śri in 1. 2 and ki in 1. 3). The sound u is represented by a sign similar to the English letter, affixed to the bottom of the letter on the right-hand side with the right arm greatly extended upwards. The long is distinguished from the short one by a bend to the right of the top (blu of bhu-vallabhundu in 1. 6). Exceptions to this form of u are those of ku in 1. 1 and of ru in 1. 12, and another exception is that of ndu in 1. 4. In the last-mentioned case the right arm of u is not extended. Thus the signs for i and u are true to their names in Telugu, where they are called gudi (circle) and kommu (horn) respectively. No distinction is made between the short and long forms of e and o; and herein we see the influence of the Sanskrit orthography, which knows no short forms of these letters. The sign of e is generally attached to the top of the letter, but sometimes to the bottom (go of Goma in 1. 7, nd-e in 1. 9, and be in 1. 22). O is sometimes represented by its proper sign, as go in 1. 13, and sometimes by the combination of e and a, as go and k-o in l. 10, go in 1. 11 and y-yo in 1. 14. The sign of anustara is written at the upper left-hand corner of the succeeding consonant.
Among the consonants the difference in the forms of t and is very slight. The cerebral n is nearly allied to the dental n in form, as it is in sound. It may be roughly described as n with the sign of o attached to the top. The sign for tha is the same as the modern sign for it minus the short downward stroke at the right-hand lower corner. The letter t has no loop on the left side, and there is no difference, except in the matter of talakaṭṭu, between its primary and secondary forms, as in the modern Telugu. The modern secondary form is obtained by straightening the curve of the earlier secondary tu. The letter dha corresponds to the modern du, while the unaspirated form of it leaves a gap in the right arm. In fact d and d are nearly alike. The modern device of converting the unaspirated da into the aspirated dha by adding a downward stroke at the bottom was not yet invented. The letters ba and bla are also repre sented by separate signs.
In his annual report for 1909-10 (p. 82) Mr. H. Krishna Sastri remarked that a few lines on the third face also have to be read upwards. But it is not so.
