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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XVIII
(LI. 9 to 1L) Be he victorious, the royal lion (Rajasinha) on the top of the chief mountain of the glorious Pallava race, whose spotless fame as the lion of warriors (Kshatrasimha) is widely known, whose crown is resplendent with the crest-jewel, vis. Mahēsvara (Siva), the lion among lords of kings (Narēndrasitha) of the whole earth, and an Arjuna in battle (Yuddharjuna).
(Ll. 11 to 14.) May he exercise the royal prerogative and take up the vow of administering (his) su bjects up to the extremities of his kingdom, as even to include the thongand-islands, he, who is known by the name "the great wrestler" (Mahāmalla) on account of his (skill in) hand-to-hand fight, who is excessively devoted (Atyanta kāma) ever to serve at the pair of the lotus-feet of Sambhu (Siva), who is the blessed cloud (Sri-Mēgha) that makes the mass of crops, the Brahmans, prosperous, who is the Moon to the ocean of (his) race," the victorious in battle" (Ranajaya) and the storehouse of prosperity" (Srinidhi)!
No. 19.--BRAHMI INSCRIPTION ON A WOODEN PILLAR FROM KIRARI.
BY HIRANANDA SASTRI, M.A., M.O.L. Kirari is a small village in the Chhattisgarh Division of the Central Provinces. It lies some ten miles to the west of Chandarpur and about twenty miles to the south-east of Kharsiä, which leads to the Jogimārā cave, so well known for its very ancient fresco-paintings as well as early Brāhmi inscriptions. The river Mahānadi flows some four miles to the south of it. Outside this village there lies a large and old tank called Hirabandh which is rather an em bankment meant to collect the overflowing rain water at the time of floods. Owing to draught this tank had dried up and in April 1921 the agriculturists of the village began digging its bed to throw the fertilizing silt over their fields. On the 29th or 30th of that month they hit upon a wooden pillar which they removed from the mud and placed in the sun, not knowing the disservice they were doing thereby to the cause of Indian Epigraphy for, the moment the pillar began to dry a good deal of its surface peeled off carrying with it the major portion of the invaluable record which was incised on the pillar. Noticing that the pillar bore some letters on it some of the villagers called their Pandit, named Lakshmiprasāda Upadhyāya, to see if he could read the writing. Failing to make it out he very carefully took an eye-copy of all the letters which he noticed on the pillar at the time of his arrival, not omitting even the faintest traces of a letter over it. Apparently, he was not aware how the record ran, which side came first or which was the top or bottom of the letters. Like a true copyist he wrote out each line separately on sheets of paper available to him at the time according to the maxim of writers
यादृशं पुस्तकं दृष्टं तादृशं लिखितं मया। यदि हमशचं वा मम दोषो न विद्यते॥ This is a doubtfal translation of the word nie . I propose to take it as an aoyayibhava deriving it 1191 g a far af xfat. [far: ufort, etc, is another suggestion—H. 3.] If this interpretation is correct, it shows that the Pellava role must have extended in the time of Rajasimba even to the distant islands in the ocean. The word guy may also be corrected into ou and with repeated we may translata ap to the thousand islanda.'
Could there be a reference by dhwani in the word t ee to the Laccadive !slands called qurtain Fana'srit? The exact relation that might have then existed between the Pallava king Rajasimha and the Lacerdive Lolanda bas nowhere been found. In this connection it may not be out of place to point out that Dr. Vogel in his learned contribution on the Yüps inscriptions of king Müla varman from Koetei (East-Borneo) (Nederlandech. Indü, 1918, p. 192) aaks :-"Supposed the powerful Pallava princes of Kanchipura had equipped armadas and carried their arms to the remote shores of Champa and Jays, may we not assume that their conquests on the far wide of the ocean would have been extolled in their prabantis with no lees effusion than we find lavigned on their victories over the Chalukyu ? " Here we have, though not a prafasti, at least a sigoificant bint that the Pallata dominion was ambitious otough to extend to the distant islanda,
