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204
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
Birth is the cause of old age and death (jarā-marana). Of what nature is the old age? It is the baldheadedness and decay, shrinking of the skin, gradual (physical) diminution and ruin, hunchbackedness, crookedress, spread of black spots on the body, quick respiration, body stooping on the front, leaning on sticks, mental trouble, mental debility, loss and diminution, decay ct the sense of organs and their dissolution, rotting of the sarskāras, and demolition of the body organs. Such is old age. What is death? It is the falling off of particular beings in their respective groups. Death is complete dissolution and cessation from existence, it is the abandonment of life and (vital) fire, complete extinction of the faculty of life, dissolution of the skandhas. Death is the arresting of the product of time. The latter is death and the former is old age both abridged together is called jarā-marana.
Such is the meaning of the derivatives of the chain of dependent production."
No. 34.-ANNIGERI INSCRIPTION OF KIRTTIVARMAN (II.); THE SIXTH YEAR.
By N. LAKSHMINARAYAN RAO, M.A., OOTACAMUND. The stone inscription forming the subject of this paper was copied by me during the field season of the year 1928-29 at Annigeri (or more correctly Annigere) & village in the Navalgund Taluka of Dharwar District, Bombay Presidency and a Railway station on the Hubli-Guntakal section of the M. & S. M. Railway. Though at present a small village, Annigeri appears to have been an important town from early Chälukya times down to the Muhammadan period. In the 9th century it was the chief town of the Beļvola three-hundred district administered by Dēvannayya, an officer of the Rashtrakūta king Amõghavarsha I.' Under the Chalukyas of Kalyani and the Hoyasaļas it continued to be known as the rājadhāni-pattana or the capital town. 'Several other inscriptions of successive periods prove the importance of the place down to the time of Sultan Muhammad Shāh of Bijāpur in Saka 1567. In Sanskrit records the place is called Anyatatāka, obviously a Sanskritized form of the Kanarese name Aņņigere. The present inscription which is the earliest record at the place is engraved on three faces of a small pillar set up in front of the Banaśarkari temple. As it refers to the construction of a chëdiya (Skt. chaitya) it may be surmised that this pillar does not belong to the Banasankari temple.
The record is fairly well preserved except for the first two lines on its first face. But the king's name can be read in l. 1 as Kirttivarmma and the rest, being the usual preamble can be supplied from other inscriptions. The alphabet is Kanarese of the 8th century A.D. written in a neat upright hand. Among initial vowels, the record contains a in araneya (1. 5), i in idara (1. 10) and o in ond- (1. 4). Medial i is distinguished from i by & small loop in the circle denoting the i sign (cf. geyd=i in line 8 with chèdiya in line 9). Medial u is a hook on the right in ku (cf. Kuppa in line 11) while it is & U-shaped stroke at the bottom in other letters (cf. Jebulagēri in l. 7). The length in ū is marked by the addition of a downward curve to the u sign as in ndü of gāmundú (1. 8). The e sign is marked as in older inscriptions by a stroke to the left added to the talekatļu as in ne of äraneya (1. 5). Among consonants the inscription has four of the test letters kh, , 6 and 1, (ni alone being absent) all of which present early forms. D
1 [The concluding portion of the Sanskrit text is not evidently found in the Chinese translation.-N. P. O.) 1 Above, Vol. VI, p. 100 and Vol. VII, p. 204.
Sen, for inntanco, Bombay-Karnatak collection for 1928-29. Nos. 187 and 180. Saine collection No. 202.
