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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XV.
temple of Mahādēva in the village, and an ink-impression was prepared for the late Dr. Fleet, which is now in the British Museum. The stone is rectangular, with a rounded top, on which are sculptures, viz. in the centre a linga on a stand ; to the proper right, a priest half turned towards it and half facing to the front, and apparently holding some offering towards the liriga, while wearing a veil (?) hanging from his head ; to the proper left of the liriga & scimitar and a ball; above these, the sun (right) and moon (left). The inscribed area below this is about 2 ft. 2 in. broad and 4 ft. 2 in. high. The character is good regular Kanarese of the end of the twelfth century, resembling that of the Kurg5d inscriptions (above, Vol. XIV, p. 205), with similar floral and animal decorations and flourisles. The average height of the letters is 1 Short w is several tiines written with the avagraha character which properly denotes the absence of a vowel. The reason for this curious practice is that as the Kanarese people for ease of pronunciation usually inserted after a closed consonant a short u sound, which was commonly written in full (e.g. tata, 1. 9), in order to relieve the harshness as they felt it) of the sound of the unvocalised consonant, some of them went so far as to confuse this secondary u with the avagraha sign denoting the very absence of a vowel which had led to the insertion of the ul. Hence the avagraha came to be regarded as denoting short medial u, both primary and secondary. This ti as denoted by the avagraha I have transliterated by [u]. Examples of it for primary « are : 8[u]/hamam (1.2), g(n)navati (1. 36), [u]tukt! Ipao (1. 39), unt[u] (11. 39, 86), vipCu)?- (11. 41-2), -k[u]mud(1. 80), -9[u]n- (1. 82), Sambh[] (1. 82), her[u]tt (1. 93). In other cases here where we find the avagraha written at the end of words, though it cannot be decisively proved that it is meant to denote t, yet this inference seems most probable, in view of the phonetic conditions of the period? : such cases are -sa inkar (1. 10), tilasad- (1. 33), dig. (1. 34), enippal (1. 46), -mahibhrit- (1. 48), biffar (1. 78), partthivēndrān (1. 90). Some other features of the writing are worth notice. The guttural nasal appears in mangalam (1. 94). The carsive forms of m, y, and (above, Vol. XII, p. 335) all occur. That of m is very common (47 times in 11. 1-70); that of y is found once, in Jaya mtan (1. 38); and that of appears in vdad: (1. 26), Kesava- (1. 67), Vuppini(na) Kaunta-Gavuda (1. 77), -arnnava. (1. 82), and vasundhara in (1. 88). The sabscript t is often written in its full form. The word srt is regularly written in a flourished conventional form. The annusvira is sometimes a small circle above the line, sometimes (in modern fashion) a large circle on the line.--Except for four Sanskrit verses (nos. 1, 37-9), the language is Old Kanarese. The archaic ? is preserved in Chalana (1. 21), and falsely substituted for ļ in balasida (1. 31), negardalu (1. 37), tamnole (1. 44), a inale (1. 48), kolagad- (1. 59 f.), and -ali (1. 91); it is changed to rin negardan (11. 9, 11-2, 18, 35, 82 f.), norrpadě (11. 20, 49), negardaļu (1. 37); and elsewhere it has been replaced by 1. Sporadicnlly ay hecomes ey, as in nileyao (Il. 4, 49), visheyao (1.9), aleyao (1. 15), afreyao (1. 33), lipideyao (1. 79); initial ya becomes ye occasionally, in -yesan (1. 14), -yeśc (11. 25, 34, 47), yetipan (1. 82), yemao (1. 83), yejamānan (1. 85), yeth-eshfa(1. 87); and conversely ey becomes ay in -vanitayaralli (1.24), elayan (1. 64), kuduraya (1. 67), baļļayim (11. 70-1), manaya (1. 72), horayalu (1. 75), kaffayan (1. 78), dharayam (1. 83), nadayisi (1. 87). In 1. 73 we find the common titlo Yadava-Narayanas pelt as Adaca-No. This variation may be connected with the frequent change of initial a to ya, which might have led sporadically to the reverse change of ya to a; but this explanation is hardly satisfactory. As the same peculiar form is found in other inscriptions (Adara-ramo in the Soraţir inscription of A.D. 869, above, Vol. XIII, p. 177; Adava-kula in a Nidagundi record of Saka 1152, Vijaya, 1. 8), it is quite possible that Adave is the original name of the family, and Yadava a Sanskritised form serving to support an imaginary pedigree. The upadhmāniya occurs in bhivinah po (1. 90). There is change of vy to by and of ur to br in -byāpaka- (1. 34), -byāparar (1. 34),
Of course this conclusion cannot apply to texts of an earlier period; and even in records of the late 12th century and subsequently it is not legitimate to transliterate the avagraha at the end of words & W @xtept in the case of records like the present one, where it is lao used to denoto primary W.
