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No. 28.)
BARGAON TEMPLE INSCRIPTION OF SABARA.
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been edited so far. It is edited here from good estampages supplied by the Superintendent of the Archæological Survey, Central Circle, Patna.
The inscription is fragmentary. Nothing has of course been lost at the top, the bottom and the proper right side. But an indefinite number of letters have disappeared on the left side owing to the breaking away of the stone. The extant portion of the record is in a state of good preservation. It consists of five lines, of which the last, which begins at a distance of 2' from the proper right end, contains only three aksharas. The characters belong to the Nagari alphabet. As regards individual letters we may note that kh consists of two triangles joined by a horizontal line at the top; th shows a vertical stroke on the right; r exbibits two forms--one with a loop as in kridara, 1. 3 and the other without it in Sabara, l. 1. Rai Bahadur Hiralal conjecturally referred the characters of this inscription to the 8th or 9th century A. D., but they appear to be somewhat later and may be of the 10th century A. D.
The language is Sanskrit. The record is written in prose throughout. It is written incorrectly and contains some mistakes of sandhi (as in ato arthë for ato='rthë in 1. 4) and of gender (as in sapath-ēdam for sapatho'yarn in the same line). The only orthographical peculiarity that calls for notice is that b is throughout denoted by the sign for v, see Savara and Valādhikrita, both in l. 1 and vrahma-stamra in 1. 2.
The record opens with Om namah and refers to a commander of the army (Baladhikrita) of Sabara. His name which is partly mutilated appears to be Siva. Tbe object of the inscription seems to be to record the gift of a cess on the threshing floor together with a granary to some ascetic residing at the temple in the settlement of Brāhmaṇas for the benefit of the god) Sankaranārāyana, to whose temple the inscribed stone was apparently affixed. The record ends with the imprecation that whoever would offend against it would incur the sin of the slaughter of a Brahmaņa.
The preserved portion of the inscription contains no date, but, as stated above, it can, on palgeographic evidence, be referred to the 10th century A.D. The illustrious Sabara mentioned here is perhaps identical with the Sabara, named Simha, mentioned in a fragmentary stone inscription found at Bhilsā, to which Dr. F. E. Hall has called attention in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXXI, p. 111, n. 2. The latter inscription states that Vāchaspati of the Kaundinya götra, who was a minister of the king Křishņa after defeating the lord of Chēdi and slaying a Sabara named Simha placed the kings of the Rālā-mandala and Röda pädi on the throne and repaired to the temple of Bhaillasvāmin evidently at Bhilsā where he composed a stötra in praise of the god. From the mention of the lord of Chēdi and the Sabara chief Simha together in the same line, Dr. Hall conjectured that the latter was the Chedian generalissimo. The Sabara of the present inscription, too, was no doubt subject to the contemporary Chēdi or Kalachuri king. for a much defaced inscription at Bargaon to which General Cunningham has drawn attention refers to a Kalachuri king or kings. But as the present inscription mentions a commander of the forces of this Sabara himself, it seems that he was a feudatory chief and not a mere generalissimo of the Chedi king. This fragmentary inscription at Bhilsā is also undated, but the date of the king Krishna, whose minister was Vāchaspati, can be approximately fixed on other evidence. At Maser, a village about twenty-five miles north of Bhilsa, Mr. M. B. Garde, Director of Archæology.
1 See Chod-lar samarē vijitya Sabaram samhritya Simh-ahvayam Ral-mandala-Rödapädy.avanipo(pau) bhayām pratishthäpya cha Devam drashtum=ih=āgato rachitavām(n) stotram pavitram param Srimat-Krishna. ntip-aika-mantri-pada-bhāk Kaundinya-Váchaspatih cited by Hall in J. A. 8. B., Vol. XXXI, p. 111, n. t.
2 Cunningham, A. S. R., Vol. XXI, p. 165.
