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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
and is 8" thick. The inscribed surface is disfigured by two round holes cut near the right end and there is moreover a large piece broken off below these holes. For the rest, the stone is complete. It is, however, obvious that the inscription was engraved on a series of stones fitted together into & wall and that this stone is only one of them. Portions of three lines of the inscription have survived and these contain portions of verses 13, 14, 16 and 17. The first line contains the last seven aksharas of the third foot and the whole of the last or fourth foot of verse 13, thus showing that more than 12 stanzas are missing at the commencement of the inscription.
The characters belong to the northern variety of script of about the 5th or 6th century A. D. The inscription was composed in elegant metrical Sanskrit but unfortunately its value is much marred by its fragmentary nature and neither the name of the ruler of the time nor the purpose of the document can be ascertained.
TEXT. ...... [Fa]ufmat yuriu ICT Tea Tree
(5)& Wat [**] [**] Tatsutafafa'.. ... . 2 ......... [url] *188 (Ta:] Ruet Rafaza Twith
Fra FIT fa[:*]' ....... ......... [want = sta:] foryanthareswalifar: [1] [u*] 4thta[fa]helle' .....
TRANSLATION. (Verse 13)........who by diligent veneration of those worthy of respect is constantly res plendent............
(Verse 14)........who had attained the highest limit of prosperity and in the fire of whose anger (his) enemies were frequently consumed like moths..
(Verse 16)........who had covered the three worlds with his fame white like the Moon......
II. Sirsa Stone Inscription of the time of Bhojądöva. According to No. 23 of the list of inscriptions maintained in the Lahore Museum, this inscription was found in a mound near the town of Sirsa in the Hissar District of the Punjab and presented to the Central Museum, Labore, by the then Deputy Commissioner. The stone is broken irregularly on all sides. The maximum dimensions of the extant portion are-width 2' 7", height 1' 7" and thickness 1' 1". The loss which each line has suffered will be apparent from the subjoined text. Suffice it to say that more than 10 verses are lost at the commencement of the inscription while the last stanza which has survived in part in line 16 is numbered 32. The existing portion of the inscription is in good Sanskrit poetry and few mistakes occur. The characters belong to the 9th century A. D. and the Bhojadēva whose name is found in the third line, I take to be identical with the Bhöja of Kanauj, inscriptions of whose time are found at Deogarh, Gwalior and Peoha.! No connected translation of the document is possible and I can only record here such fragmentary information as can be gathered from the portions of the stanzas that have sur. vived.
1 Metre : Sardalavikridita. -- Metre: Malint:
• Kielhorn, List of the Inscriptions of Northern India, Nos. 14, 15, 16, 546, eto.; Bhandarkar's List, Nos. 33, 88, 26. 1412.
