________________
292
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XV.
remaining matter within the available space. The opening lines are, as usual, in Sanskrit, and refer to the date and the reigning king. From the 5th line commences the business portion, which is recorded in the local patois of Hindi, intermixed with a few Gujarati phrases, indicating that the writer was a man from Gujarat, probably a Kherawal Brahman, a caste of Gujarat emigrants found in some force in the town of Damoh.
The notable orthographical peculiarities are the representation of kh by the symbol for sh, and that of b by the symbol for v, the latter being distinguished in the record by a dot placed below it. These peculiarities still exist in Bundelkhand, of which Damoh once formed a part. The vowels i and separately written bear superfluous additional vowel signs of their own, as used with consonants. The Gujarati influence is conspicuous in the use of the for se (11.9 and 11) and the change of na to na; for instance, Khana is written as Khana and bin as bin (line 4). There are also a number of spelling mistakes, for instance, in line 1 sattara (70) is written in words as satara, which means 17. We have to thank the writer for noting the date in numerals; otherwise confusion would have been inevitable.
The inscription refers itself to the reign of Sultan Mahmad Shah, son of Nasir Shah, and is dated in the Vikrama Samvat 1570, on Monday, Magha vadi 13, corresponding to Monday, the 5th December 1512 A.D. The king was the last of the Khiljis of Malwa, which was wrested from him by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat in 1530 A.D. The Khiljis of Malwa commenced their rule about 1416 A.D. and took Chanderi, of which Damoh formed a part, in A.D. 1438. Damoh thus came under the Malwa Khiljis soon after they became kings and remained under them till the dynasty was extirpated. The first king of the dynasty was Mahmud Shah I, who stationed an officer in the town of Damoh instead of in Batisgarh, where the Delhi kings had placed theirs. It was at this period that a fort was built at Damoh, opposite the western gate, whereof a breastwork was erected during the reign of Ghyas Shah, son of Mahmad Shah I, in the year 1480 A.D., as recorded in a Persian inscription found in Damoh long ago. On a Sati stone on the bank of the Sonar river, near Narsingarh, 12 miles north-west of Damoh, there is a Hindi record which is more explicit than the Persian one. It is dated in Samvat 1543, or A.D. 1486, and refers to the reign of "Sultan Ghyasudduniya of Mandogarh durga" (Manda fort), leaving no doubt as to the identity of Ghyas with the Malwa king of that name. Ghyas Shah's son was Nasir Shah, whose name is found on another stone lying under a tree near Satsuma, a sacred place on the Sonar river further north. It is dated in Samvat 1562, or A.D. 1505, when he had been on the Malwa throne for five years. Our inscription refers, as stated before, to the times of Nasir's son Mahmad Shah II, mentioned in so many words, and furnishes the link with the last Khilji ruler holding sway over Damoh.
The record is a proclamation of remission of certain fees levied by the Mukta grantee of the town of Damoh. Apparently seed-lenders, midwives and tailors and those who had marriages at their houses were required to pay fees to the landlord of the town. Seed loan business has been, and is still, a very profitable occupation, at any rate in the Damoh District, and the professions of midwives and of tailors in the machineless days were very lucrative. A marriage is a time of merrymaking, and even now it is customary to make a present to the landlord, irrespective of whether the latter gives any assistance or not. From the trend of the record it appears that the fees had become oppressive, and it was therefore resolved to proclaim their remission, appealing to the good sense of the fee-taker, as is evident from the penalty prescribed, viz., an imprecation of pollution from a pig in the case of a Musalman and of the guilt of killing a cow in that of a Hindu.
There are only two geographical names in the record, viz., Damanva nagara, or Damoh town, and Khalachi-pura, which is about 180 miles west of Damoh. The latter is only inci* Cunningham's Arohæological Reports, Vol. XXI, pp. 168-69,
1 See Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, p. 45.
