Epigraphia Indica Vol 31

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 58

No. 4_SENAKAPAT INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF SIVAGUPTA BALARJUNA
(1 Plate M. G. DIKSHIT, SAUGOR, AND D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND The stone bearing the inscription under publication was found in the house of a Brāhmaṇa resident of Sēnakapāt, a village in the forest area on the right bank of the Mahānadi, about two miles to the south of Sirpur (ancient Sripura, capital of Dakshiņa-Kösala) in the Raipur District of Madhya Pradesh. The inscribed stone is reported to have been brought from the ruins in the western part of the village, which contains two big Siva-lingas, each about 21 feet in height, apparently marking the sites of two temples. To which one of these temples the inscription originally belonged cannot be determined. The stone is now preserved in the Museum attached to the Saugor University.
The inscription is incised on a large well-dressed slab of Vindhyan sandstone, rectangular in shape and reddish buff in colour. It is about 30 inches in length, 18 inches in height and 3 inches in thickness. The slab is broken into two unequal sections which, however, dovetail into each other quite well. A letter or two which are damaged in most of the lines of writing can be fairly satisfactorily made out in almost all cases. Only a few such aksharas have to be restored with the help of the context. On the whole, the preservation of the record is not unsatisfactory. The inscription consists of 23 lines of writing which is divided into two sections. The first of these sections runs from the beginning to line 17 and the second from line 18 to the end (line 23).
The characters belong to the Northern Alphabet of the seventh or eighth century A. D. and closely resemble those of other contemporary stone inscriptions discovered in the neighbourhood, particularly the inscriptions of the time of the king during whose reign the present epigraph was also engraved. The record employs the initial vowels a (lines 7, 10, 11, 21), a (lines 10, 18, 20, 21), i (lines 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15), u (lines 1, 23) and ri (line 23). In some cases, there is little difference between the signs of medial u and subscript » (cf. sünu and Onnati in line 23). Th9 medial sign of a is difforently made sometimes as a siro-mātrā, but sometimes as a prishtha-matra (cf. udvēllarto in line 1, anuyāne in line 2, etc.). The letter n has two forms (cf. samānam and nikchalam in line 12), one of which resembles in some cases a form of (cf. ripu in lines 2-3. bharanirbhara in line 11) and in a few cases also oft (cf. pravissitaio in line 11, niruriti-dhanam in line 21).
The letter b has been indicated by the sign of v. The conjunct ry exhibits both its earlier and later forms (cf.or=yasya in line 12 and or=yāgasya in line 18). For the final form of some consonants, of. samyak in line 16 and Omān in line 23. The first and second halves of stanzas are marked respectively by a single and double danda, of which the former as well as the left side member of the latter has a small projection in the middle towards the left.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit. With the exception of the introductory mangala, the whole record is written in verse. There are altogether 30 stanzas in various metres. As regards orthography, it may be noted that final m at the end of the second and fourth feet of verges has invariably been changed to anusvāra. Before &, the anusvära has been changed to (cf. sitīnsu in line 3, etc.). The inscription bears no date. But the king, during whose
1 For the Sirpur Lakshmana temple inscription, see above, Vol. XI, pp. 190 ff. and Plate. For another Sirpur stone inscription of the same roign, ago Cunningham's A. 8. Rep., Vol. XVII, Plato XVIII A, and Ind. Ant., Vol. XVIII, pp. 197 f. The same king's oopper-plate grants, however, exhibit characters of the box-headed type. Cf. the Mallar (abovo, Vol. XXIII, pp. 113 ff.), Bardula (ibid., Vol. XXVII, pp. 287 ff.) and Lodhia (ibid., pp. 319 ff.) plates.
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