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No. 26.]
DONGARGAON STONE INSCRIPTION OF JAGADDEVA; SAKA 1034. 177
26 na achar || vātötapi Vya(vyā)sa-gitā-silõkā bbuvati [1*] 27 "Yasya(sya) yasya(sya) yada(dā) bhūmi tasi(s-tasya) tasya tada phala[m*] [l*] Sa-data 28 para-datarm=vāk yo harēti(ta) vasu[n*]dharā[m*] [l*) sa vithayās krimi29 ri putvā pitsibbi[h*] sa(sa)ba da(pa)chyatē (II)
No. 26.-DONGARGAON STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF JAGADDEVA ; SAKA 1034.
BY PROF. V. V. MIRASHI, M.A., NAGPUR. In October 1939 Mr. M. G. Deshmukh, M.A., my former student and a research scholar of the Nagpur University, told me about a stone inscription at Dongargāon, a village about 10 miles from Pusad in the Yeotmal District of Berar. I gave him the necessary materials for taking an estampage of the record. He copied it with the assistance of Mr. Tatvavadi, Tahasildar of Pusad. His estampage, though not perfect, was sufficiently clear to show that it was a record of the time of the Paramāra prince Jagaddēva, which had not been noticed in the late Rai Bahadur Dr. Hiralal's Inscriptions in C. P. and Berar. I published a short note on its contents and historical importance in the local papers in February 1940. As the estampage taken by Mr. Deshmukh was not sufficiently good for reproduction, I requested the Government Epigraphist for India to copy the record for me. In compliance therewith Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra kindly supplied me with excellent estampages from which I edit the record here.
Dongargāon is, as its name signifies, situated on a hill. There are two old temples here, one of which is in a fair state of preservation. The other one is very much dilapidated. Its mandapa alone is now standing, the garbhagriha having fallen into ruins. The present inscription is incised on the architrave of the door of the old garbhagriha of this temple. The writing covers & space 4' 31" broad and 7%" high, and consists of eight lines. It has suffered a good deal by exposure to weather, some aksharas in the first and last lines and at either end of the remaining ones having now become almost illegible. Besides, the stone was not originally well dressed and the technical execution of the record also is not satisfactory. It is, however, possible to read with patience and perseverance almost the whole of it except about a dozen aksharas which have become altogether illegible in lines 1, 5, 7 and 8. The characters are Nāgari, regular for the period to which the record refers itself. The size of the letters is .7" in the first six lines, but is reduced to 6" in the seventh line and to .5" in the eighth for want of space. Worthy of note is the use of double prishtha-mātrās in several places. In other inscriptions of the same period, one of the two mātrās denoting the medal ai and au is usually placed on the top of a letter, while the other becomes a prishtha-mātrā. This is noticed in the present inscription also in puny-odayāy=aitat in 1. 7. But in all other cases both the mātrās of the medial ai and au appear as prishtha-mātrās.? In many cases the letters p and y as well as
1 Read Slökā bhavanti.
• The engraver has carelessly left out the first half of this oft-repeated verse, viz., Bahubhirevasudha dattā rajabhik Sagar-adibhib.
. Read Spa-dattan. * Read -dattath vů. 5 Road vishthayan. • Read krimir-hüvi.
I have noticed a similar use of double prishtha-matras in an old Marathi manuscript of the Mahanubhava sect from Berar.
