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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXIIL
No. 29.-FRAGMENTARY STONE INSCRIPTION OF QUEEN UDDALLADEVI:
V. S. 1294.
BY M. M. NAGAR, M.A., SARNATH MUSEUM, BENARES. The inscription was secured by Mr. B. M. Vyas from Nagod State, Central India, for the Allahabad Municipal Museum wherein it is now preserved, and was kindly placed at my disposal by him together with an estampage for editing it. I am here publishing it for the first time.
The Inscription is incised on a rectangular block of buff-coloured sandstone measuring 181" by 12%" and is broken at the top. Consequently, some of the opening lines of the record have been lost; what may have been their exact number cannot be ascertained.
The writing which is in 22 lines covers a space of 18)" by 12" and is in a fairly good state of preservation excepting some letters of the last four lines which are only partly preserved. The opening and concluding letters of some of the lines are also much worn out. The letters are cut shallow and being much corroded at places present some difficulty in decipherment. Their average size is 3". The characters belong to the Northern variety of alphabets of the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. They resemble modern Nāgari, the exceptions being the letters ch, 10 (1. 8), i (1. 12), m (1. 16), etc. The language is Sanskrit and up to the first half of line 12 it is in verse and thereafter in prose. The orthography is regular and calls for no remarks.
The epigraph refers itself to the time of one Uddalladēvi, the chief queen of the illustrious Mahamandadēva, and the daughter of the illustrious Mahāsāmanta Bharahadēva of the Rashtrakula(kūta) family. Mahamanda was a feudatory of the illustrious Adakkamalla who seems to have belonged to the Gahadavāla family. It records the erection of a shrine for the illustrious Vindhyēsvara Siva on Thursday), the Damanaka Chaturdasi, Samvat 1294, corresponding to Thursday, 12th March, A.D. 1237. To judge from the description of the temple it seems to have been an imposing structure. The eulogy was composed by the learned, the illustrious Sukhākara.
Line 2 of the extant record eulogizes some lady but it is not certain who she is as the major part of the verse has been lost. Supposing she be Uddalla dēvi, even then, owing to the lacunae in the epigraph it is not possible to ascertain 'the exact relation between her and the illustrious Lakshamaņa of 11. 3-4 and the overlord Dharmadēva of 1. 5.
The inscription shows that even after the extermination of the Imperial Branch of the Gahadavālas of Kanauj by the Muslims, local chiefs of the same dynasty were in existence in various parts of Central India and Rajputāna. One such chief was Adakkamalla and that he was of some importance is clear from the mention of Mahamanda as bis feudatory.
King Harischandra (c. A.D. 1197-1200)", the last known ruler of this dynasty, meeting his final defcat in A.D. 1226 at the hands of Iltutmish, fled with his family towards Farrukhābād
Mr. A. Ghosh mentions Mau (U. P.) as its findspot, which is denied by the discoverer. [Mr. Vyas told me that he had got the inscription from Unchabra in Nagod State.-Ed.)
? A note on this inscription has appeared in the Journal of the U. P. Historical Society, July 1935, Vol. VIII, Pt. 1, pp. 21-23, by A. Ghosh, M.A., who is referred to in the notes below as A. G.
[According to the context Ränaka Dharmadeva belonged to the mother's family of Lakshmana and was probably his maternal uncle.-Ed.]
Though A.D. 1200 is the last date hitherto known of Harischandra from his Macchlishar Grant (above, Vol X, p. 95), it appears that his power lingered in the more inaccessible parts of Kanauj up to A.D. 1226 when it was tinally captured by Iltutmish. Dr. H. C. Ray seems to be correct in his assumption that the battle of Chandwar gave to Muslims only the possession of the more important cities and strongholds: the countryside beyond the reach of the Muslim posts still continued to be under Hindu rule' (Dynastic History of N.I., Vol. I, p. 547).
