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234
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
3 varppa-Dhana(aub)-krishna-pratipadi Bhaumavärë Sa(Sa)[mbhöé-charan-äravi
The date of the inscription is therefore not Saka 1145, as suggested by Chakravarti, but really Saka 1140. The astronomical details of the date (Dhanus-badi 1, Tuesday) tally regularly with the 4th December 1218 A.D., which is probably associated in the epigraph with the 10th Anka or 8th regnal year of the Ganga king Anankabhimadēva (Anangabhima III).
[VOL. XXX
Inscription No. 1 begins with the symbol for siddham which is followed by the expressions svasti iti. Then follows the date (Anka 23 or regnal year 19, Makara or Magha-badi 3, Thursday) in the regnal reckoning of Rautta (i.e. a feudatory) Bhimadeva (Anangabhima III). There are three epithets describing the king, of which the first one is of considerable interest. It says that the Ganga monarch, described as a subordinate ruler, was the son of Purushottama (i.e. the god Purushottama-Jagannatha of Puri). We have seen elsewhere how the Ganga king Anangabhima III dedicated his kingdom in favour of the said deity and considered himself a Rauta or Räutta (i.e. feudatory) of the latter and how his successors, as they regarded themselves subordinates to the god Purushottama-Jagannatha, did not enjoy formal coronation at the time of their accession. In this context, the claim of Anangabhima III to have been the son of the god in the present record (as well as in the other one to be discussed below) assumes special importance. The claim to be the god's son was undoubtedly meant to be the same as that preferring to be the god's feudatory. The second epithet of the Ganga king in the inscription under review represents him as the lord of the whole earth as far as the four oceans. As we have elsewhere shown, this is a conventional claim preferred by the imperial rulers of ancient and medieval India. The third epithet of the king seems to say that he was surrounded by a large number of learned men.
The inscription records the grant of a perpetual lamp in favour of the god Kirttiväsa (Krittivasa or Siva worshipped in the Lingaraja temple) and, for making provision for the same, a piece of land which was called Vänkiläṇḍā, measured 2 Vätis (about 45 acres according to modern calculation) and was situated in the southern part of the village called Uchisama-grama. The grant was made by the Senapati (i.e. general, apparently of the Ganga king) Ira (or possibly Iévara) who belonged to the Kasyapa götra and was the son of Surandi and grandson of Chandesvara. There is an endorsement at the end of the inscription in line 11, which seems to record the grant. of another piece of land measuring 6 Manas (ie. Vāți), situated in a locality called Balabhadrapura.
Inspite of the loss of the beginning of no less than ten lines of writing in Inscription No. 2, it s clear that its first three lines offer the same text as lines 1-3 of Inscription No. 1. Lines 4-5 of Inscription No. 2 quote the date of the record. As has been pointed out above, this date cannot be determined owing to the fragmentary state of the passages in question. The inscription records
1 The inscription has some interest to the student of the social history of medieval Bengal. The remaining lines of the epigraph read as follows:
4 nda-[bha]ktēna Sandilya-sagötra-sama(mu)dbhūtēva(na) Vaidya-Danḍapāņidatte
5 na yavad-devōpabhoga-paristha(stha)pana yavad-atm-öpabhōgiya
6 dravyath érl-Kirtti(Kritti)vasadevasya purattab(tab) sa(sa)évad-āhāvatē(d=ähṛitya) prakāśarā(nā).
7 ya ghrit-akhanda-dipa-dvayam dattan-&(m-)-chandr-arka-pravarttanaya [ | *] ye anye a
8 [dhikariņo... villumpakasta(stě) devasya ch-äljña] [ya*] vadhavangata (bandhanan-gataḥ ||)
.......
It is interesting to note that the donee was a Vaidya named Dandapani-datta who belonged to the Sandilys götra. Amongst the Vaidyas of Bengal, those having the cognomen Datta belong usually to four gotras, vis. Kausika, Kasyapa, Sandilya and Maudgalya (of. Bharatamallika's Vaidya-kula-panjika entitled Chandraprabha, Calcutta, B.S. 1299, p. 7). The crystallisation of the professional community of the Vaidyas into a caste seems to have begun earlier than the date of the present record.
* See above, Vol. XXX, pp. 17 ff.; also JKHRS, Vol. I, pp. 251 ff.; Or. Hist. Res. Journ., Vol. I, pp. 48 ff. JRASB, Vol. V, 1939, pp. 407 ff.; Sarupa Bharati, Hoshyarpur, 1954, pp. 315 ff.
