________________
79
No. 16]
INSCRIPTIONS FROM BIHAR
The characters of the inscription belong to the Gaudiya alphabet and closely resemble the script used in East Indian records of about the twelfth century A.D. such as those of the Senas of Bengal and the later Pälas of Bengal and Bihar. The only point of palaeographical interest in the epigraph is that the letter l has two different forms exactly as in records like the Naulagarh inscription of Vigraphapala. The language is corrupt Sanskrit as in numerous other records, especially private ones, discovered in different parts of Bihar. The orthography of the inscription under study also resembles that of many other contemporary records from Bihar in exhibiting considerable influence of the East Indian pronunciation."
The record, like the grants of the Palas and Sēnas, is not dated according to any era. In the corrupt language of the inscription, its date is quoted as pramesara-ity-adi-bri-Valala sēņa-samata 9. In this passage pramesara-ity-adi stands for Sanskrit parameśvar-ety-adi. We know that the imperial title Paramesvara-Paramabhattaraka-Mahārājādhiraja or ParamabhattarakaMahārājādhiraja-Paramesvara was often condensed in the medieval records, especially of Eastern India, to Parameśvar-etyādi-raj-avali-purvavat or Paramabhattarak-ēty-ādi-rāj-āvalī-pūrvavat. Sometimes the word purvaka was used in the place of purvavat while at times the expression was further contracted by omitting a word or two from the end. There is no doubt that Paramesvar-ety-adi is a more abbreviated form of the imperial title group, exactly as samast-ety-adi which similarly refers to the epithet samasta-suprasasty-upēta often noticed at the beginning of the string of imperial titles, as for instance, in the inscriptions of the later Senas. The word samata in the passage of our inscription quoted above apparently stands for Samvat (i.e., Samvatsare).10 Thus the date quoted is the ninth regnal year of an imperial ruler named Valalasena. There can hardly be any doubt that Valalasena is a wrong spelling for Ballälasena. No monarch with the peculiar name Valalasēņa is known to have ruled over any part of Eastern India in any period of history while the Sena king Ballalasēna ruled over Bengal, and also over parts of Bihar according to traditions, in circa 1158-79 A.D.," falling in a period to which, as noted above, the inscription under review has to be referred on palaeographical grounds. It may be pointed out that & for s is a peculiarity of Bengali pronunciation while the typically South Indian name Ballala is due to the Sēnas having migrated to Bengal from Karnata, i.e., the Kannada-speaking area of the Deccan. The inscription, dated in the ninth regnal year of Valalasēņa (Ballalasēna) has therefore to be assigned to a date about 1166 A.D.
1 JBRS, Vol. XXXVII, Parts 3-4, p. 4, Plate I, No. 1. Note the different forms of I used in the words påla and Krimiliya in line 1 of the epigraphic text. Cf. JRASBL, Vol. IV, p. 395.
2 See above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 144-45; JBRS, op. cit., p. 10, etc.
Cf. JBRS, op. cit., pp. 9-10.
As to the change of para to pra, cf. pti for pati in an inscription from Bihar (above, Vol. XXVII, p. 144). Another inscription, examined by me at Jhämta near Biharsharif, gives the name Damodara as Damodra. But such contractions are quite common in the epigraphic and literary records of Orissa. Cf. Oriya pramisvara in the Madala Pañjt, ed. A.B. Mahanti, p. 31, lines 11, 15, etc.
In the charters of the East Indian monarchs of the Pala, Sena and other dynasties, Paramésvara usually comes first; but in the grants of such imperial families as the Gahadavalas we have Paramabhattaraka at the beginning.
Cf. R. D. Banerji, The Palas of Bengal (Mem. A.S.B., Vol. V, No. 3), p. 111, eto. For similar contractions used in the grants of the Gähaḍavalas of the U. P., see H. C. Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India, Vol. I, pp. 541, 545.
R. D. Banerji, op. cit., p. 110; JASB, N.S., Vol. XX, p. 372; JASL, Vol. XVIII, p. 71, etc.
JASB, N. S., Vol. XX, p. 374.
N. G. Majumdar, Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, pp. 124, 136, 145.
10 See IHQ, Vol. XXX, pp. 382 ff.
11 History of Bengal, Dacca University, Vol. I, pp. 216-18.
