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No. 3.)
RAJIM STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE NALA KING VILASATUNGA.
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No. 3.-RAJIM STONE INSCRIPTION OF THE NALA KING VILASATUNGA.
BY PROF. V. V. MIRASHI, M. A., NAGPUR.. Rajim is a well-known holy place, 28 miles south by east of Raipur, the head-quarters of the Raipur District in the Central Provinces. It is situated on the eastern bank of the Mahanadi at the junction of the Pairi with that river. A fair is held there for a fortnight from the full-moon day of Māgha in honour of the god Rājivalochana. The principal temples at Rūjim are those of Rājivalochana, Ramachandra and Kulēsvara. They have been described in detail by Mr. Beglar and General Cunningham in the Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Vol. VII, pp. 148-56 and Vol. XVII, pp. 6-20, respectively. Mr. Cousens! and Mr. Longhurst who visited the place in 1903 and 1907 have also written notes on them in their respective Progress Reports.
As early as 1825 Mr. Richard Jenking, who was Resident at Nagpur, drew attention to three inscriptions at Räjim, of which he sent eye-copies and facsimiles to Mr. W. B. Bayley, Vice President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal'. One of these was the copper-plate inscription of Tivaradēva, which has since been edited by Dr. Fleet in the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. III, pp. 291 ff. The remaining two were stone inscriptions, one of which, viz., that of Jagapala, was later on edited by Dr. Kielhorn in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVII. pp. 135 ff. The third inscription has, however, remained unpublished so far. Jenkins had sent a copy and a facsimile of this record also to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, but as it was too much mutilated to be decipherable with any degree of satisfaction", no transcript of it was published in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV which contained transcripts, imperfect of course, of the other two. The inscription was, for the first time, very briefly noticed by Dr. ( then Mr.) D. R. Bhandarkar in Cousens' Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of Western India for 1903-04, p. 48. He drew attention to the names of the princes Andapānala. Přithvirāja, Virūparāț and Vilāsatunga and of the Sūtradhāra Durgahastin and stated that the inscription recorded the erection of a temple of Vishnu. He, further, assigned the record to about the middle of the 8th century A. D. This account was followed by Rai Bahadur Hiralal in his Inscriptions in C. P. and Berars, but he, for the first time, correctly read the name of the king Nala in line 6. Owing presumably to its mutilated condition, the inscription has so far received little attention, but as it is the only stone record of the Nala dynasty found in the Central Provinces, I edit it here from the original stone, Cunningham's facsimile and inked estampages taken under my supervision.
Like the aforementioned inscription of Jagapāla, the present record is incised on a slab of stone which is built into the left hand wall of the mandapa of the temple of Räjivalochana, The record contains 22 lines and at present covers a space 3' 8" broad and 1' 4" higb. Some aksharas have, however, been lost on the right and left sides under the lime border.
1 P. R. A. S. W. 1. for 1903-04, pp. 24 ff.
Ar. Rep. A.S.E.C. for 1907-08, p. 35. • Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, pp. 501 and 511. • Loc. cit.
Dr. Bhandarkar seems to have wrongly read khyatoandapanala iti instead of khyāto nripo Nala iti in line 6. These words were for the first time correctly read by R. B. Hiralal.
First ed. (1916), p. 103 ; second ed. (1932), p. 112. Hiralal read the word Pandava in line 4, which, if correct, would connect this family with the Sómavamśis. But I do not find it anywhere in this record.
Rao Bahadur C. R. Krishnamacharla, while editing the Podigadh inscription, remarked that that was the first stone record of the Nala dynasty discovered till then (above, Vol. XXI, p. 155).
. 4. 8. 1., Vol. XVII, plate IX.
