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No. 21.]
TWO INSCRIPTIONS FROM BERAR.
127
No. 21. TWO INSCRIPTIONS FROM BERAR. BY PROF. V. V. MIRASHI, M.A., NAGPUR.
A.-The Amrapur Stone Inscription of the reign of Singhana-Saka 1133.
The inscription, which is edited here from an impression kindly sent to me by the Government Epigraphist for India, is in a temple of Siva1 called Ambikesvara at Amrapur (ancient Ambaḍāpura), a village about 28 miles from Buldana in Berar. It is inscribed on a stone built into the wall above the lintel of the door of the garbhagriha. The whole record which consists of eight lines covers a space of 11" in breadth and 1' in height. The size of letters varies from 1.7" to 9". The characters are Nagari. The initial a occurs in amkato-pi in 11. 1-2 and Ambadapure in 11. 5-6, the initial i in Bhaideva in 1. 7 and the initial 4 in Deunayaka in 1. 5. The medial è is shown in some places by'a prishthamätra (cf. Bhäideva in 1. 7). The language is incorrect Sanskrit, The whole record is in prose, As regards orthography we may note that the letter is doubled in two places after the preceding 'r', viz., chakravartti in l. 4 and kirttaně in 1. 7,
The inscription states that in Saka 1133 when the cyclic year was Prajapati, Deunayaka was the governor (of the territory round Ambaḍapura) in the victorious reign of Srimat-Pratipachakravartti Simghanadeva. In that year a person named Mamgala, the son of Bhāideva, built a torana (?) in the temple (kirttana) constructed by Padumana (Pradyumna)sethi who was a resident of Ambaḍāpura.
The date does not admit of verification for want of details; but the cyclic year for Saka 1133 (expired) [=1211-1212 A.D.] was Prajapati as stated in the inscription. Singhanadeva, who bears the title Pratapachakravarttin in this record, is evidently the Yadava king of that name who ruled at Devagiri in the first half of the 13th century A.D. There are at least three different dates for the accession of this Yadava king, each supported by a number of regular epigraphical dates, viz., 1122, 1129, and 1132 Saka years. Saka 1133 (expired) is, however, the earliest certain date of Singhana's reign and the present record is also the earliest inscription of the Yadavas of Devagiri found in Berar. It is likely that Singhana was actually crowned in Saka 1132 although he may have been associated with government as Yuvaraja in the lifetime of his father for some seven years and succeeded him in 1129 Saka. It is also possible that the last of the accession' dates, viz., 1132 Saka, may have been calculated from some important event in his reign, such as the conquest of the Karnatak, which is alluded to in the Doni inscription. Anyway he must have won several victories before Saka 1134, the date of his Mardi stone inscription, and it is reasonable to assume that in one of these early campaigns he annexed the Berars or the country round Ambaḍāpura where we find the present inscription.
TEXT.
1 Svasti Sri [*] Sākē amka
2 tō-pis 1133 Prajapati samva
3 tsare svasti érimat-pratapa-chakra
4 vartti-sri-Simghanadeva-vijaya-rājyē
1 The inscription is not at the temple of Bhawani as stated by B. B. Hiralal in his List of inscriptions in
C. P. and Berar (Second Edn.), p. 153. The latter is on an eminence at a short distance from the temple of Šiva.
Fleet, Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. I, Part II, p. 522.
No. 79 of the Bombay-Karnatak collection for 1927-8.
G. H. Khare, Sources of the Mediaval History of the Deccan, Vol. I, p. 48.
This expression which means " also in figures" is out of place here, as the date is not expressed in words
