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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XXI.
No. 23.-THE CHANDREHE INSCRIPTION OF PRABODHASIVA : THE KALACHURI
YEAR 724.
BY THE LATE MR. R. D. BANERJI, M.A.
The inscription which is edited below was discovered by the late Mr. Beglar, one of the Assistants of the late Sir A. Cunningham, at Chandrēhi or Chandröhe,' a small village near the banks of the Sona close to its confluence with the Banks. It lies in lat. 81° 32' E and long. 24° 18' N (Rewah Topographical Survey Sheet No. 291 of 1877). The village is situated in the State of Rewah in Baghelkhand Agency of Central India and is noted for the existence of ancient ruins, two buildings among which are still standing, viz., & temple of Siva and a fine Saiva monastery.'
The inscription which has already been noticed by Kielborns is incised on two slabs of stone of the same size which are let into the back-wall of the front verandah of the monastery, one on each side of the main door. Altogether there are twenty-seven lines of writing which are unequally divided, the first slab, marked A in the text below, bearing fourteen lines and the second, marked B, thirteen. The inscribed surface is's sunken panel with a plain border, which is on the whole in a very good state of preservation. Except for a few stray letters the writing is clearly legible.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit and with the exception of the invocation at the beginning and the second half of the concluding line, which are in prose, the whole of the record is in verse. It has been carefully incised and mistakes are very few, e.g., sasvad for safvad (1. 12) and -charam-fjagati for-charañ=jagati (1. 16). As regards orthography the following peculiarities may be noticed : n is used for anusvāra in hansa (. 2) and dhvansa (1. 18); consonants with a superscript or subscript have not always been doubled, e.g., r-muni (1. 10), kārya (1. 14), guror-guru (1. 23), satru (1. 13), mahidhrë (1. 18), etc.
The characters belong to the Northern variety of the Indian alphabet of the 10th century A.D. and bear great resemblance to the Bilhari Inscription of the Kalachuri Yuvarājadēva II The principal peculiarities of this alphabet are the presence of two acute-angled triangles in the lower part of kh, cf. Sikhi (1.1), the looped form of th where the loop is not yet open, cf. tatha (). 1) and the angle at the back of d ; cf. ambhode (1. 1). There is no acute angle in the lower part of p or at the bottom of v, m, and y. Two different forms of ph have been used, cf. phani (1.1) and sphäri- (1.2). R is wedge-shaped and one loop of l is longer than the other.
The object of the inscription is to record the erection of a monastery (matha) and the excavation of a tank and a well by & Saiva ascetic named Prabodhagiva who also repaired and re-excavated a well formerly caused to be excavated by his preceptor Praśāntasiva. This inscription and the Gurgi inscription of Prabodhasiva provide us with the spiritual genealogy of the Rewah branch of the ascetics of the Mattamayura olan whose full genealogy has been discussed elsewhere.
The present record throws light on the date of erection of the temple of Siva at Chandrēhe which was the first specimen of its kind to be discovered. We learn from verse 17 that Prabodhakiva built a monastery close to the temple erected by his spiritual preceptor Praśāntasiva (vv. 2122). Therefore the temple of Siva which stands within a few yards of the entrance to the monastery must be the temple erected by Prasäntasiva. According to the date given in this inscription the
Canningbam, A. 8.1. R., Vols. XIII, pp. 6 ff. and XIX, pp. 90 f. P. R. A. 8., W. C., 1921, p. 63. . Ind. A n., Vol. XX, p. 85, No. 11 and above Vol. I, p. 354, footnote l.. Above Vol. I, pp. 254 ff. and plato
• The Haihayas of Tripuri and their Monuments by R. D. Banerji (Memoirs of the Arch. Suro. of India No. 23), chapter IV, pp. 110 ff.
