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356
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[Vol. XXVI
been referred to twice in this journali by Dr. Kielhorn and has also been briefly noticed by Rai Bahadur Hiralal in his Inscriptions in C. P. and Berar. It is edited here for the first time from the original stone which is now preserved in the Central Museum, Nagpur.
According to a manuscript history of Ratanpur, the stone bearing this inscription was discovered within the Badal Mahal' of the fort at Ratanpur, 16 miles north of Bilaspur in the Bilaspur District of the Central Provinces. More than 75 years ago one Reva Ram Kayastha of Ratanpur prepared a transcript of the inscription for the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, which is now included in the aforementioned MS. history of Ratanpur. The stone was then apparently in a state of good preservation, for Reva Ram's transcript has no lacunæ. It has since then suffered in a most deplorable manner especially in the middle of lines 5-35 where from 3 to 39 aksharas have been lost in each line. Lines 13 and 14 have been completely effaced except for a few aksharas at one end. In the extant portion also, several letters here and there have become partly or wholly illegible. Unfortunately Reva Ram's transcript affords little aid in such places, as it is full of inaccuracies, judging from the extant portions of the record. A patient examination of the original has enabled me to prepare the subjoined transcript from which it is possible to form & general idea of the whole record.
The inscribed portion measures 2' 91' broad and l' 91' high and contains 36 lines. The characters are Nägari. The medial diphthongs are shown by prishtha-mātrās; is still without a dot, see, e.g., bhririga-, 1, 2; the rare jh occurs in jhāmkritain, 1. 24 and jhamkāra, I. 27; the upper loop of th is not open, see pratyarthi-prithvipatau, 1. 20; in its subscript form the letter is still laid on its side, see pāntha-, 1. 24; finally, dh has not yet developed a horn on che left, see dhārādharāna, I. 2. The language is Sanskrit. Except for om namah Sivāya in the beginning and the date at the end, the whole record is metrically composed. It contains 45 verses, all of which seem to have been numbered. The orthography does not call for any notice except that the consonant following is generally reduplicated and v is throughout used for b.
1 Above, Vol. 1, p. 33 and Vol. V, Appendix, p. 60, n. 1.
Second ed., pp. 127 ff. This is also probably the inscription mentioned by Cunningham's assistant, Beglar, in A. 8. I. R., Vol. VII, p. 215, though he says that it is dated a 979; for his description of it fits the present record. The centra of the slab which is a large one', says he is worn quite smooth; it opens with an invocation to Siva.
• Jenkins also says that the stone was within the fort of Ratanpur, near the Badal Mahal' (Asiatic Researcher, Vol. XV, p. 505). Beglar, however, was told by some people at Bilaspur that the slab originally cane from Dhangaon (i.e., Dhanpur, now & village in the Pendrá Zam indari in the Bilaspur District, which contains several ruins). If the object of the inscription was to record the gift of a village in honour of Siva under the name Sömanātha, installed at Kumarākota (see vv. 36-39), the inscription may have been originally put up at that place and later on removed to Ratanpur. • Drug District Gazetteer (1909), p. 47. This is referred to below as the Ratanpur MS.
Jenkins' account of the contents of this inscription which was based on the report of Aurangabadkar is equally incorrect; for accordi ng to him the present inscription contains a list of nine Rajās in the order of succes. sion from father to son, including the one by whose order the inscription was engraved. Aurangabadkar's MS. mentions five of these, viz., Prithvipā la, Brahmadēva, Rudradēva, Prithvidēva and Sridēva. The extant portion shows the names of Prithvipala, Brahmadēva and Prithvidēva only. The other names seem to be due to mislection, for they do not occur in the manuscript history of Ratanpur algo. Further, Jenkins speaks of Prithvidēva as a fortunate king who in his old ago resigned his kingdom called Kösaladesa to his son. This is evidently an in. correot interpretation of verse 21 of the present inscription. What the verse really means is that Prithvidēva, who is identical with the Kalachuri king Prithvidēva II of Ratanpur, called Brahmadeva to his capital and entrasting the government of his kingdom to him, led a life free from oute.
