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No. 17) AJAYAGARH ROCK INSCRIPTION OF CHANDELLA KIRTTIVARMAN
87
Obver 36
1 sal 67 Dhau(Pau)sha-di[n]ē....' 2 Nagaidā]makē da[ttam pa*). 3 dmam Sādhy-Echy-Akai[h*] 4 Kēka[vā](-pa[dējs 5
[iti llo)
No. 17-AJAYAGARH ROCK INSCRIPTION OF CHANDELLA KIRTTIVARMAN
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(1 Plate)
SANT LAL KATARE, NAGPUR The inscription belongs to the reign of the Chandēlla king Kīrttivarman. It is inscribed on & rock above a group of female images lying below the upper gate of the fort of Ajayagarh, which was also called Jayapura.' It is noticed by Cunningham in his Archaeological Survey Report, wherein he says that the inscription consists of four lines and contains the name of king KirttiVarman in the fourth line. It is again noticed by Dr. N. P. Chakravarti in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India for the year 1935-36, p. 92, where its contents are briefly summarised. It is edited here from an ink-impression kindly sent to me, at my request, by Mr. N. Lakshminarayan Rao, Government Epigraphist for India. The famous fort.of Ajayagarh lies about 16 miles north-east of Kālañjara as the crow flies. It has yielded a number of inscriptions of the time of the Chandēlla kings, who had their capital at Kālañjara. It served as their capital and it seems, whenever Kālañjara was occupied by the Muslims, the Chandēlla kings took refuge at Ajayagarh from where they pursued their fight against the invaders to recapture their capital.
The inscription, which has in all four lines of writing, occupies a space 3-5%" wide and 4' long on the rock. The characters are Nägarī of the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century A.D. The prishthamātrā has been used for medial e, but the mātrā for ő is indicated either by an urdhva and an agra mātrā, as in Kālañjaro in line 1, or by a prishtha and an agra mātrā, as in nāmadhēyo in line 2. In the case of the mātrās for ai and au, no uniform system has been followed. The consonant following r is usually doubled. The forms of è and p in ēkātapatram in line 3 and y in mänyo in line 2 are similar. .
The mistakes in the text which appear to have crept in because of the carelessness of the scribe have been corrected either in the text or in foot-notes. The inscription ends abruptly and though the closing mark of the double danda is inserted at the end, the last verse remains incomplete.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit and, except the invocation to Chandikā, it is in verse. There are in all eight verses of which the first two are in the Vasantatilakā metre and the remaining in Upajāti.
1 Read Sam, Samvat or Samvatsarē. 2 The letter n in 'ne and the numerical figure that must have followed are completely broken away. * The aksharas tam pa are broken away and have been conjecturally restored.
The intended reading may possibly be Kedawı. Better read padishu. The letter d in de is damaged. • There are traces of an akshara in this part below the concluding letters of line 4. * Above, Vol. I, p. 325. *Vol. XXI, p. 54.
