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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII.
No. 16.-A KALACHURI STONE INSCRIPTION FROM KASIA.
BY DAYA RAM SAHNI, RAI BAHADUR, M.A.
The stone slab on which this inscription is engraved, was discovered by Mr. A. C. L. Carlleyle1 in 1875-76 at the Buddhist ruins near Kasia which has since been proved by successive excavations to represent in all probability the ancient site of Kusanagara where Gautama Buddha breathed his last or entered Mahaparinirvana. The exact spot where this discovery was made was on the south side of the door-way of the brick shrine in which the large blackstone image of the Buddha at the moment of his enlightenment, locally known as the Matha Kuar, was originally enshrined. This shrine turns out to be the chapel of a monastery of the 11th or 12th century A.D., and not an independent temple as Mr. Carlleyle presumably imagined. This monastery was excavated by Pt. Hirananda Sastri in 1911 and 1912. As the inscription which forms the subject of this paper, was found in this monument, it seems to me likely that this document recorded its erection. The loss of the latter portion of the inscription to be referred to later on is, therefore, much to be regretted.
The slab is the blue stone of Gays of the same kind as the material of the colossal Bodhi statue, referred to above and must, likewise, have been brought from that District and inscribed and set up in the building where it has been recovered. Mr. Carlleyle had rubbings of this inscription made for Professor Kielhorn from which and certain others supplied by the Curator of the Lucknow Museum, the late Professor published a résumé of the contents of the record in his Epigraphic Notes in Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen Phil.-historische Klasse 1903, pp. 300 to 303. Professor Kielhorn did not edit any portion of the inscription. The text that I edit below was prepared in 1912 when I was Curator of the Provincial Museum at Lucknow and I believe I have succeeded in deciphering the whole of the record as far as it was decipherable. Besides, a fuller treatment of the inscription was necessary as this is the only record, so far known, of the branch of the Kalachuri family to which it belongs. The condition of the inscription is described in Professor Kielhorn's notes referred to and only salient points may be mentioned here. This slab is 36" wide and 173" high. The existing portion of the inscription contains 24 lines, but evidently some writing is lost at the end of it. The annexed plate will show the amount of damage that has occurred to the document from the peeling off of the surface, rendering illegible large portions of several lines and making other parts almost unreadable except with difficulty from the original stone. The size of letters ranges from " to " exclusive of the vowel marks. The smaller size of " occurs in the lower lines due evidently to considerations of space that was available on the slab when the engraver had reached a certain stage of his task.
The characters are Nagari of the 11th or 12th century A.D. I agree with Professor Kielhorn that both the writer and the engraver have done their work carefully but, even so, a few mistakes have crept in. In 1. 9 we notice Nahusha spelt with gh in place of h. In four cases the anusvara in the body of words is replaced before the sibilants sa and sa by the nasal of one or other of the vargas. These are vansa for varia in 11. 10, 11 and 12 and rajahanet for rajahamsi in 1. 19. Sandhi is everywhere carried out except once in kalpataruḥ trijagat in 1. 19. As is usual in inscriptions of this period, the final consonants are sometimes written small, with a curved stroke beneath them, and the consonant va is written in place of ba. I have used the correct form throughout. The inscription is composed throughout in Saskrit verse with the exception of the invocation of the Buddha in the beginning of 1. 1. The metrical portion contains thirty verses and a few syllables of the 31st verse. Professor Kielhorn has published a list of
14. 8. B. Vol. XVIII, p. 68.
4. 8. R. for 1910-11, Part II, p. 68 and 1011-12, Pt. II, pp. 188 ff.
