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164 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIII The inscription is written in the Dēvanāgari characters of the medieval period. Its language is not Hindi but corrupt Sanskrit. The data is quoted as V. $. 1351 and Saka 1216 without any other detail. The year corresponds to 1294-95 A. D. The inscription seems to have been incised towards the close of 1294 A. D. or about the beginring of the following year.
The record begins with the date : Sa[m]vatu 1351 Säke 1[21]6 |. This is followed in lines 1-4 by the auspicious word svasti and the passage &ri-Kirtti-durgrë(rgë) samasta-raj-avali-samalakritaparmabhaţārka(paramabhattaraka)....maraja-[éri-Gajna pati-mahāpradhana-Déuva....... vyāpāra[1] [ka]roti. The two damaged aksharas before maraja may be padi, so that the reading of this expression, which is clearly an epithet of dri-Ganapati, may be padimara(rā)ja. The authors of the notices of the inscription, discussed above, apparently failed to read the name sri-Ganapati and regarded padmarāja(corrected from padimaraja)as the personal name of the Paramabhattāraka. This cannot be the case, since, of the name sri-Ganapati immediately following, the three aksharas napati are quite clear while traces of the two aksharas fri-Ga can also be easily recognised. What is then the meaning of the epithet that looks like padimaraja ? In our opinion, it is a mistake for paramarāja which is found in a Bangla inscription among the epithets of king Gõpāla (known dates between V. S. 1336 and 1345, i.e. 1279-89 A. D.) of the Yajvapāla family, who was the father and predecessor of Ganapati. This epithet occurs in the following passage; paramabhattārakah parameswarah paramamāhësvaraḥ paramaguruh paramarājaḥ. In the present case, we have only the first and last of the five epithets.
The name of Ganapati's Mahāpradhāna is difficult to determine. It may be Deu or Dêuva. This officer was apparently stationed at Kirti-durga. A Mahāpradhana named Dējai, Dējē or Daja is known from the Bangla inscriptions to have served Ganapati's father Göpāla. He was probably stationed at Nalapuri-durga or the Narwar fort which was the capital of the Yajvapälas. The Bangla inscriptions appear to state that Mahapradhāna Dējai, Dējē or Dējā was conducting the gadani (or madani)-vyāpāra. Unfortunately the meaning of the expression is not clear to us. Another difficulty is that the two aksharas before the word vyāpāram in the inscription under study are damaged and the word does not look like gadani or madani. Apparently, however, Mahā-pradhāna Dēu or Dèuva was the governor of the district round Kirti-durga and the modern village of Budhera formed a part of that district. Some medieval documents use the expression mudra-vyāpāraṁ paripanthayati in connection with a high administrative officer like the viceroy and the intended reading in both the present record and the Bangla inscriptions may be mudrā-vyāpāra.
This raises the problem of the identification of the fort called Kirti-durga. The Chanderi inscription of a Pratshära ruler named Jaitravarman, who flourished in the eleventh or twelfth century A. D., states that his grandfather's great-grandfather Kirtipāla built a fort named after himself as Kirti-durga ; but Chanderi itself is mentioned in the inscription as Chandrapura. It is therefore uncertain whether the Chanderi fort is referred to as Kirtidurga in the inscription in question. Another inscription of V. 8. 1154 (1098 A.D.), from Deogarh in the Lalitpur Subdivision of the Jhansi District, U. P., states that Mahidhara, chief minister of the Chandella king Kirtivarman, built the fort of Kirti-giri or Deogarh, apparently named after his master
1 Abovo, Vol. XXXI, p. 331, No. 3, text lines 1-3. * Ibid., pp. 331 (Nos. 2-4), 332 (No. 5), 334 (No. 9), 335 (No. 10), 336 (No. 15).
Ibid., pp. 331 (No. 4, line 6), 332 (No. 5, line 6), 334 (No. 9, lines 3-4), 335 (No. 10, lines 4-5)336 (No. 15, line 5).
Cf. above, Vol. XXXII, pp. 152, noto 2 ; 169, text line 6. Drivedi's List, No. 633 ; Patil, The Cultural Heritage of Madhya Bharal, p. 94.
