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No. 35–PURI INSCRIPTION OF CHODAGANGA
(1 Plate) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 9.5.1958) Some time ago I was informed that the removal of a coating of plaster from the walls of the temple of Siva called Märkandēsvara at the well-known city of Puri in Orissa revealed the existence of a number of inscriptions which had previously been hidden from the eye. In November 1957 I visited the temple and copied the inscriptions on its walls.
Out of the inscriptions copied by me from the walls of the Märkandēsvara temple at Puri, three were found to belong to the reigns of three kings of the imperial branch of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. All the epigraphs record the installation of perpetual lamps in the temple of the god Mārkandēśvara. The earliest of these reords is engraved on the right wall of the second gate and belongs to the time of the great Anantavarman Chodaganga (1078-1147 A.D.) who conquered the Puri-Cuttack region from the Sõmavamsis about the beginning of the twelfth century. The writing of the record is fairly well preserved. This inscription' is edited in the following pages.
The preservation of the other two Ganga epigraphs in the Markardēsvara temple is unsatisfactory. The earlier of these two inscriptions is engraved on the same wall as the record of Chodaganga and is dated in the third year of the regnal reckoning of Rāghava who was a son of Chodaganga and ruled in the period o. 1156-70 A.D. The passage containing the date at the beginning of the record in line 1, which is in Sanskrit, reads : [svasti] Srimat(mad)-Rāghavadēvasya vijaya-rājyasamvata(sarvat) 3. No other details of the date have been quoted in the inscription. Since the Anka system of calculating regnal years may have been introduced during the reign of Rāghava's elder brother and predecessor Kāmārnava (c. 1147-56 A.D.),' year 3 may be an Anka year actually referring to the second year of Rāghava's reign. The next passage of the inscription in Oriya in lines 1-2 reads : sri-Märkande[svara]dēvara .. .. .. .. .. .. kavadi-pana tini akhanda-dipa väraha. It apparently refers to the investment of three Panas of cowries for the installation of twelve perpetual lamps in the temple of Märkandēsvaradēva. The third inscription, engraved on the right wall of the doorway, is fragmentary, its lower part being damaged. Its date portion in lines 1-2 reads after the Siddham symbol followed by the word svasti: sri-vira-Bhänú[dēva]sya pra. varddhamāna-vijaya-rājya-samata 14 srāhë. The record was therefore incised in the fourteenth year of the reign of one of the four Ganga kings named Bhanu. The characters employed in the inscription are Gaudiya and not Oriya and this fact may suggest that the king has to be identified with Bhānu I or II rather than with Bhānu III or IV. The year seems to refer to the Anka reckoning and to the twelfth actual year of the reign of the king in question. The next passage in lines 2-4 of this inscription reads: Hara-prityā dēvi Umārkara data fri-Mārkakandēsvaradēvanka [sthi]rā e-divasa a-chanir-ärkas akhanda-dipakai........ This clearly shows that, a queen named Uma probably one of king Bbänn's wives, created a permanent endowment (sthira) for a perpetual lamp
1 This is No. 408 of 1957-58, App. B. There is another inscription (No. 403 of the same App.) written partly in Telugu and partly in Sanskrit in Gaudiya characters. It records that Atyändi's son Ganganäräyana Vélandi alias Chodagangana deposited 6 Madhas for the provision of oil for perpetual lamp in the Märkandēsvara temple on Thursday, Tuli-ku. 12, Saka 1061 (possibly September 27, 1128 A.D.). The inscription, however, does not refer to the reign of Anantavarman Chodaganga.
* These are ibid., Nos. 404 and 407. Cr. 811., Vol. V, Nos. 1321-22, 1326-27, 1332-34.
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