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No. 15.
ROCK INSCRIPTION OF SVAMIBHATA FROM DEOGARH.
125
No. 15.-DEOGARH ROCK INSCRIPTION OF SVAMIBHATA.
BY DAYA RAM SAHNI, RAI BAHADUR, M.A. The antiquities of Deogarh situated about 22 miles from Lalitpur in the district of Jhansi are described in Dr. Führer's Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, pp. 119-121 and 338, Mr. P. C. Mukherjee's Report on the Antiquities in the District of Lalitpur and General Cunningham's Archeological Survey Reports, Vol. X, pp. 100-110. The ancient fort at Deogarh is designated Luachchhagira in the Deogarh pillar inscription of Bhojadēva of Kangaj, Vik. Samvat 9191 while the Deogarh rock inscription of Kirtivarman of the Vik.] year 1154 gives it the name of Kirttigiri."
This inscription is engraved on a much-worn rock-cut flight of steps which led down on the south side of the Deogarh Fort to the water of the river Betwă which encloses it on three sides. This flighit of steps is locally known as the Nahar or Når Ghati und possesses as many as eleven niches all contemporaneous with the Ghăț some of which still contain their images. The panel occurring at the top of the Ghät, with which we are here concerned, contains & row of nine seated figures which represent, beginning from the left :-(1) A male figure holding • rind between both hands, probably Virabhadra, (2) Brahmi with three faces, (3) Mähögvari seated on a lion and holding Gapēda in her left hand, (4) Kaumäri on her peacock, (5) Vaishnavi on the Garuda, (6) Varihi, (7) Indrapi, (8) four-armed Chamanda, seated on a human corpse and (ə) two-armed Ganapati.
The inscription under description is engraved immediately above this panel of the divine Mothers. The inscribed surface is l' 11' wide and 1' l' in height. The inscription consists of seven lines and is in a fairly good condition of preservation though six letters in the beginning of the first line and a few letters in the beginning of each of lines 5-7 are mutilated. The characters which belong to what Dr. Bähler styles the " soute-angled alphabet” of Northern India, are closely allied to the alphabet in which the Bodh-Gaya inscription of Mahānaman of the Gupta year 2695, the Prasaste of the temple of Lakha Mandal at Mádhá in Jaunsár Bawar Pargana of the Dehra Dun District, the Benares inscription of Pantha and several other documents are written. The striking peculiarities of this alphabet are the highly ornaniental konas and matras and these are fully shared by the epigraph under discussion. Dr. Bübler assigns the Lakha Mapdal prasastad to about the end of the 6th century A.D. In my paper on the Benares inscription of Panths referred to above I assigned that doou ment erroneously to the beginning of the 8th century A.D. In reality it must be as early w the other inscriptions reforred to. This is obvione, besides other considerations, from the ne of the archaic form of y consisting of the loop and two vertical lines. This form of y is also used throughout in the present inscription, and I feel no hesitation in assigning it to the 6th century A.D. The language of the document is Sanskrit and except for the opening words om namah at the beginning of line 1, the inscription is in verse throughout. In the matter of spelling and sandhi, only one or two irregolarities are observable in our inscription. One of these is the use of práptáns-tridata instead of praptans-tridasa in line 5. Similarly although the doubling of consonants in contact with r after vowels is quite regular, the form kkrama gata (1. 4) in the beginning of the third quarter of v. 4 is objectionable, as the consonant k concerned.
1 Epigraphia Indica, Vol. IV, p. 808 seq. • Indian Antiquary, Vol. II, pp. 811 81. and Vol. XVIII, pp. 937 . • Pleet, Gupta Inscriptions, Pl. XLI, A. . Epigraphie Indies, Vol. I, p. 10 seq. . Ibid, Vol. IX, p. 69 and PL, facing p. 80, • Indian Palmography, edited by Dr, Fleet u na Appendis to the Indian Antiguary, Vol. XXXIII, p. 40.
