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218 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXX distriot according to an inscription of 1178 A.D. Chandra of the inscription under study appears to have been a similar Sub-divisional Officer of the Bhilsā region. He was apparently a devotee of the Sun-god of Bhilsā and got a eulogy of the deity composed by the poet Chhittapa who may have been an inhabitant of the same area.
The inscription ends with the akshara chha placed between double dandas. This chha is really one of the many variants of the Siddham symbol. While at the beginning of records the symbol appears in several forms (variations of a sign resembling the modern Oriya 1 or 2 as reproduced in Ojha's Prächinalipimāla, Plate LXXIX, with the cocasional addition, in the former variety, of a cipher below or at the right), at their end it is usually found in the form of chha or tha or & symbol standing midway between the forms of these two aksharas. .
The importance of the inscription lies in the mention of the poet Chhittapa, who enjoyed the title Mahākavichakravartin, as the author of the khandakāvya in praise of the Sun-god, quoted in the record.
A number of stanzas of a poet named Chhittapa are found in the Sanskrit anthologies and some other works. But no complete work of the poet has so far been discovered. The pratikas of all the stanzas'attributed to Chhittapa have been quoted in alphabetical order by F. W. Thomas in the excellent introduction of his edition of the Kavindravachanasamuchchaya. Unfortunately there was a confusion about the poet's name which is sometimes quoted also as Chittapa, Chhittipa, Chhinnama and Chhitrama. Moreover stanzas attributed to this poet in some sources are assigned in others to' an unknown author' (kasy=āpi) or to various authors such as Simhadatta, Navakara, Dākshiņātya, Akālajalada and Hanumat or to such works as the Bhojaprabhandha. Six stanzas of Chhittapa are quoted in the Sarasvatīkanthabharana of the Paramāra king Bhõja (circa 101055 A.D.), one in the Kavindravachanasamuchchaya compiled before the end of the twelfth century, and forty-nine in the Saduktikarnāmsita compiled by Sridharadāsa at the court of king LakshmanaBēna of Bengal in 1205-06 A.D. Poet Chhittapa therefore could not have flourished much later than the middle of the eleventh century. The following stanza of the poet, quoted in the Saduktikarnāmpita (III, 36), throws further light on his age :
Välmikēh katamőrsi kasztvam=athavā Vyāsasya yên=aisha bhöḥ släghyaḥ syāt=tava Bhoja-bhūpati-bhuja-stambha-stutāv=udyamah| panguh parvatam=ārurukshasi vidhu-sparsam karēņ==chasi
dörbhyām sågaram=uttitirshasi yadi brūmah kim=atr=ottaram || This shows that Chhittapa was a contemporary and probably a court poet of a king named Bhöja who has been identified with the celebrated Paramāra monarch of that name. Thomas rightly says, “The rather numerous citations in the Sarasvatikanthābharana are, therefore, by a contemporary". His escription of Chhittapa to the tenth century is, however, apparently due to oversight, as the poet must have flourished in the eleventh century when his contemporary and patron, Paramāra Bhoja, ruled. The title of Mahakavichakravartin may have been conferred on Pandita Chhittapa by the same king. Possibly.Chhittapa was an eminent poet at Bhöja's court. The Bhilsă region is known to have formed & part of the dominions of the Paramaras. Chhittapa's friend, Dandanayaka Chandra, therefore, seems to have been an officer in the employment of Paramāra Bhõja.
1 Cf. above, Vol. XVII, p. 352 ; Proc. IHC, 1939, pp. 471ff
* For chha hoo above, Vol. XXIII, pp. 140-1 (text, lines 4 and 15), Vol. XXV, p. 63 (text, line 94), p. 221 (text, line 141) : eto. See also Naishadhiya, XVI, 98 (cf. Journ. Or. Inst., Baroda, Vol. III, No. 4, June 1954, p. 368); Hêmachandra's Ekakaharakba, v. 13; Sabataka, Poona, 1930, p. 74. For tha, see above, Vol. XVIII, p. 208 (text, line 30). Vol. XIX. p. 81 (text, line 41). For the intermediate sign, see ibid. Vol. XXII, p. 80 (text, line 38). Consult the Plates in all the cases. The mark is sometimes found at the end of a stanza or section of a record.
• Published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Caloutta, 1912, pp. 37-40.
