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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXI The charter is dated in the regnal reckoning of the king. Line 19 refers to the auspicious day of the Vishuva-sankranti, while lines 24-25 give the date as the 15th day of the dark half of Kärttika in the 22nd year of king Lalitaśüradeva's reign. We know that the other Pandukesvar plate of this king refers to the Uttarayana-sankranti as well as to the 3rd day of the dark half of Magha in the king's 21st regnal year. Kielhorn suggested that this date may be the 22nd December 853 A.D. As the date of the present record was also known to Kielhorn through its rough translation published by Atkinson, he noticed the curious coincidence that the details work out faultlessly with the 25th September 854 A.D. He further observed, "The two dates themselves do not fix the time of Lalita uradeva with absolute certainty; 'but on palaeographical grounds the inscription here published might well have been written in 853 A.D., and in the whole of the 9th century A.D. there are no two consecutive years which would suit the two dates so well as A.D. 853 and 854 do."
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The charter was issued from the city of Kärttiköyapura by Paramabhaṭṭaraka Mahārājādhiraja Paramesvara Lalitasŭradeva who, as is also known from the published record from Pandukesvar, was the son of P.M.P. Ishtagapadova and grandson of Nimbara. The names of the mothers of Lalitaśüradeva and Ishṭaganadeva were Vēgādēvi and Näsudevi respectively. Lalitaśüradeva's own queen is known, from a Bagêávar inscription referred to below, to have been Sayadevi (possibly the same as Samadevi mentioned in the Pandukes var plate of year 21). King Nimbara, who is not endowed with imperial titles and may have been the founder of this royal line, is said to have been devoted to the god Dhurjați (Siva) and the goddess Nanda-bhagavati, i.e. Durga, after whom one of the principal peaks in the Kumaun Division is called Nandidēvi. There is a river called Nandakini rising in the glaciers on the western slope of the Trisul in Pargana Badhan, lat. 30° 16' 10"N., long. 79° 46' 5" E. High up the source of this river there is the temple of Nandadevi, which is situated near Tantarakharak above the village of Satōl in the Garhwal District. This may have been the goddess referred to. Nothing important is said about Nimbara's son and successor Ishṭaganadeva; but he is called paramabrahmanya and a devout worshipper of Mahesvara (Siva) and is endowed with the usual imperial style. The reigning monarch Lalitasuradova is also endowed with the same characteristics as his father.
There is an inscription at the temple of Siva called Bagesvar (Vyaghräsvara) situated at the junction of the Gomati and Sarju in Patti Katyur in Kumaun. A tentative transcript of this stone inscription was published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. VII, 1838, pp. 1056-58. A note on the same record is also found in E.T. Atkinson's The Himalayan Districts of the North-Western Provinces of India, Vol. II, pp. 469-70. It was, however, not noticed that the text of the inscription contains no less than three grants made by three different kings in favour of the god Vyaghresvaradeva. The defective nature of the published transcript renders it difficult to be definite about the names of the two kings mentioned in the first of the three charters, as they are given in the absurd forms Sri-Bhasantanadeva (read as Masantanadeva in the translation and Basantanadeva in Atkinson's account) and Sayasvairamsvairamdadau. The names of the kings mentioned in the second charter have been quoted as śri-Kharparadeva, his son śri-Kalyāṇarājadeva and his son éri-Tribhuvanarajadeva. The third grant apparently belongs to the son and successor of king Lalitaśüradeva of our record. His name has been read as śri-Bhudevadeva, although the reading paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārājādhirāja-parameśvar-öpamiy-adhya-bri-Bhudevadeva seems to be doubtful. The name of Lalitaśüradeva has been read correctly, but those of Nimbara and Ishtagapadova have been wrongly made out. Nothing can be said, without examining the inscribed stone, about the year of the reign of Lalitasüradeva's son, in which the grant was made. Little therefore is known about the duration of his rule and about the relation of this group of rulers with those mentioned in the other two charters incorporated in the Bageśvar record.
1Cf. Bharatiya Vidya, Vol. XII, 1951, pp. 149 ff.
