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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXVIII 18 ttaru 50 adavalageyali mattaru 50 Gonavalageyali mattaru 50 19 Hamjigeyali mattaru 50 Amdi igeyali mattạru 50 Gurdavam20 dadali mattaru 50 Bairaligeyali mattaru 50 Ajjunavālali' mattaru 50 21 Hiri-y-Imdiyali gadde mattaru 1 Chikka Bēvinūrali gadde ma22 ttaru 1 Goņavalageyali gadde mattaru 2 Battakuņikeyali 23 gadde mattaru 2 Kamnavüriyali gadde mattaru 1 Si(Ši)vaya-namaḥ || 24 8va-datta() para-dattanam yo dafha)rēti(ta) vasundhară[m*) sa(sha)shţir-vva(shtim va). 25 rsa(Tsha)-sahasrāņi mi(vi)shtā(tha)yām jāyatē krimiḥ ||
No. 19--AJAYAGADH STONE INSCRIPTION OF NANA ; V. S. 1345
(1 Plate) H. L. SRIVASTAVA, New DELHI
This inscription, according to James Prinsep, was presented to the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by General Stewart. It was inserted in the Catalogue of the Asiatic Researcher, Vol. XV, as a stone slab from Ajayagarh in Bundelkhand with a Sanskrit inscription or a stone bull from Kalinjar, with a Sanskrit inscription'. Ajayagadh is a hill-fort, 16 miles in a straight line south-west of Kalinjar, Long. 80° 20' E; Lat. 24° 54' N. It was edited with a specimen facsimile and translated for the first time by J. Prinsep in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Vol. VI, (1837) pp. 882-4, and his assistant, Pt. Kamalakanta, insisted on inserting that he was not responsible for the various defects of grammar, prosody and rhetorics occurring in the text as he read as he saw it and copied it so. A careful study of the facsimile shows that the text presented is really defective. The inscription thus requires to be re-edited.
The inscription is incised on a slab of stone. It contains 21 lines and covers a space 47'27'. The average height of letters is 1", except in the last line where it is a little reduced, i.e. 9'. The record is well preserved except in line 20 where the particulars of the date and the tithi are lost and in line 21 where more than half is either broken or obliterated. This portion thus cannot be deciphered.
The characters are Nägari as in the Ajayagach rock inscription of Bhöjavarman.. The letters are deeply cut and well formed. As regards the formation of individual letters, the following peculiarities may be noted. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish between the signs for ch and v. Besides the usual form of k, there appears another in ksh (line 19, kshanadë, but not in kshanaga, or Sukrākski). The anusvāra is represented by a small circle but some cracks here and there above the letters are often mistaken for it. The final m is frequently substituted by the anusvāra. The sign for avagraha has been used only twice in lines 12 and 17. An omission in line 17 is supplied immediately below the line, the height of the letters there being -2' and the omission being indicated by a kūkapāda.
1 The correct reading would be anyjunandfali. * Read para-dattām d. . It is No. 620 of Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar's List of Inscriptions of Northern India. • Cunningham, A. 8. 1. R., Vol. XXL, Pl. XV, od, by Kiolhorn, above, Vol. I, PP. 338-8.
