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No. 31-BUDHERA PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF V. S. 1351, SAKA 1216
(1 Plate)
D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 19.2.1958)
About the beginning of 1955, I visited the small village of Budhera, about four miles to the south-east of Gudar in the Pichhore Pargana formerly belonging to the Narwar District of the Gwalior State but now to the Shivapuri District of Madhya Pradesh, in order to copy an inscription. Within the limits of the village there stands a hillock close to the north-eastern end of the Jhaloni tank and a roughly dressed pillar of stone, about eighteen feet high above the ground and 15 inches in breadth and 114 inches in thickness, stands on the hillock. The inscription in seven lines of indifferently engraved and badly preserved writing was found on the said pillar.
The inscription was previously noticed in the Annual Report of the Archaeologiaal Department, Gwalior State, Samvat 1986 (1929-30 A. D.), pp. 22 and 59-60 (No. 23), and in H. N. Dvivedi's Gwalior Rajyake Abhilekh, p. 26, No. 170. The Report gives the name of the village both as Budera and Budhera and says at p. 22, “ It (i.e. the pillar) bears & crudely engraved inscription dated V. S. 1351, which refers to Chanderi and its Bundela rulers. As the inscription is not fully legible, the exact purpose of the erection of the pillar is not clear." Elsewhere at pp. 59-60 it speaks of the inscription as written in the Hindi language and dated in V.S. 1361 and Saka 1216 during the reign of king Padmarāja and further says, "Refers to Kirti-durga and mentions Padmaraja who is endowed with the royal title samasta-raj-avali-samalamkrita-paramabhatjāraka. Other names which can be read are Udaisimha and his son (Hari]rāja, etc. Being badly written and partially damaged, its object is not clear." Dvivedi's work quotes the same views; but he spells the name of the village both as Budhëra and as Budhërā.
It is not quite clear from the published notices of the inscription, referred to above, whether Kirti-durga has been regarded as identical with the Chanderi fort and king Padmarēja has been taken to be a Bundela ruler. The authors of the notices have also not made it clear whether there is any possibility of Bundela rule at Chanderi 80 early as the end of the thirteenth century when the inscription was 'incised. Another important point they should not have ignored to discuss is that how an imperial ruler named Padmaraja was ruling at Budhera near Narwar and Chanderi at lat. 24° 42' and long. 79° 11' in V. 8. 1351 and Saka 1216 when the Yajvapāla monarch Ganapati (known dates between V. S. 1348 and 1357, i.e. 1292-1300 A. D.) is known to have been ruling over the same region in the same period from his capital at Nalapura or Narwar at lat. 25° 39' 2" and long. 77° 56' 57". As a matter of fact, we have found on a careful examination of the impressions of the record that there is no mention in it of a king named Padmarāja or of Chanderi and the Bundelas, while it clearly speaks of an officer of Gapapati (line 3) apparently as stationed at Kirti-durga. This Ganapati is undoubtedly the Yajvapale king of that name. There are also a few other errors of omission and commission in the published notices of the inscription.
Owing to careless engraving and unsatisfactory preservation, it is no doubt difficult to read the whole record. A number of letters are damaged here and there, though the damage is greater in the second half of the epigraph than in the first. But the purport of the record is quite clear. The pillar is a hero stone raised in the memory of two persons who are described in the idaription as hata or killed apparently in a contest with certain unspsoified enemies.
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