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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXVI.
L. 5. (there lived a person) who bore the distinguished appellation Srīdēva. His elder brother was Haridēva by name. The brother born after him was Dhanyadēva. His younger brother was Bhadradēva and next (younger) to him was Sanghadēva.
L. 6. Of minds attached to.........of similar manners, of noble appearance and disposition, (they had) their home at Tumbavana (where) they built a (temple) of god (..........), shining like the moon and lofty like a mountain peak.
No. 12.-TWO YUPA INSCRIPTIONS FROM BARNALA: KRITA YEARS 284 AND 335.
By Dr. A. S. ALTEKAR, BENARES HINDU UNIVERSITY,
The two yūpa inscriptions, that are being published here for the first time, were discovered by the late Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni at Barnala in the Jaipur State with the assistance of Thakur Sheonath Singhji of Kānota. Barnāla is a small village, belonging to the Thakur Sahib of Barnāla, about eight miles from the Lalsote-Gangapur fair-weather road. The two stone yüpas or sacrificial pillars, on which these inscriptions have been inscribed, were discovered in a large tank, close to the village. Each of the yüpas had been broken into two pieces at a height of about 6 and 6 feet respectively from the bottom. The Government Epigraphist for India kindly sent to me ink-impressions of these records with a request to edit them for the Epigraphia Indica ; I am doing so accordingly.
The late Rai Bahadur Sahni has noticed these inscriptions in his report on Archeological Remains and Excavations at Sambhar during Samvat years 1993 and 1994 (1936-37 and 1937-38 A.D.), pp. 3 ff. Therein he gives the following description of the yüpas: “The girdle or pāta which is well executed round the two pillars at Mathura is absent in the Barnāla pillars as well as in those from Badvă. The projecting chashāla is square in one of the Barnāla yūpas and octagonal in the other. Like the Mathura pillars those under notice are square at the base but only up to a height of 3 6" and 4' 5" respectively. The wreath is not represented. Yüpa No. 1 at Barnāla (Pl. XVII, a), which is 21' 21' in height including the lower square portion is, as far as I am aware, the highest yūpa so far known to us." As to their present whereabouts, he says: “Both these yüpa pillars have been removed from Barnala to the Hawa Mahal in the city of Jaipur, where portable antiquities unearthed during the excavations of last three seasons have been displayed for the benefit of the public."
In my paper on Three Maukhari Inscriptions on Yūpas, Kțita Year 295', I have discussed in detail the general problems connected with the nature and significance of the yüpas or sacrificial pillars. I would refer the reader to that paper for information on this point.
As on the yüpas at Badva and Bijaygadh, the inscriptions on both these yüpas have been engraved in long vertical lines to be read from top to bottom. The engraver has not followed the more convenient method of inscribing the record in short horizontal lines engraved one below the other, which is followed on the yūpa in the Allahabad Municipal Museum. The inscription on the pillar A is of one line only, while that on the pillar B is in two lines, inscribed on two adjacent facets of the octagonal shaft. The first line is 8' 5" and the second 9 long. Both the inscriptions have been sadly mutilated; it is an irony of fate that the
1 Srideva seems to have been the most important or influential among the brothers, as his name is given precedence over that of his elder brother. 1 Ante, Vol. XXIII, pp. 42 ff.
Ibid, Vol. XXIV, pp. 245 ff. . In the Report, above referred to, it has been stated that the first line is 9' and the second 8' 8. A glance at the platu will show that the first line is shorter than the second and not vice verad.
