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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIII
The inscription is written in Telugu characters except the last plate where there are eleven lines in the Oriya script. The palaeography of the Telugu section closely resembles that of the two grants of Rahgudēva, referred to above. No distinction is made between the medial signs of i and i, e and è and o and 8. Ri is used in the word Rigvedi (lines 29, 30, 31, etc.); but, unlike the modern form of the letter, it exhibits the top matra. The letter t differs from its modern form in that it has no loop at the left end. It is difficult to distinguish between d and ₫ and between bh and ch. The sign of aspiration is indicated by a vertical stroke placed below the letters dh, bh and chh. Th and dh are distinguished; cf. Jagannatha (lines 95, 123, 127), Bhutanāthani (line 87) and Bahudhanya (line 13). Anusvara is invariably used for final m and the class nasals. There are some instances of the use of the final forms of n and t.
The characters of the Oriya section are of a cursive variety not noticed in the epigraphs discovered in Orissa proper. As in the records written in the later Kalinga script, often the same letter has different shapes and different letters the same shape. For instance, in the passage Jägēsarapura-sasana (line 186), the letters g and p are almost similar. The letter bh has been written in several different forms in the words bhogyama (line 181), garabha-bhire (line 182), bhūmī (lines 183 and 188) and bhake (line 187). Similar is the case with t in ätito (lines 180-81), göta (line 183) and tōlā (line 188); n in purna (line 182) and Brahmana (lines 183-84); and h in sriharsta (line 181), mahārāja (line 185) and hoilä (line 188). The similar forms of the letters k and i in Karnnata-Kalavaragesara (lines 184-85) and hoilä (line 188), etc., are also noteworthy. Letters like k, j and h have often extremely cursive forms. Conjuncts and letters with vowel-marks are likewise often written in a cursive way, e.g., nd in khande and ti in ati (line 180), śri in friharsta (line 181), etc. The letters / and have been distinguished as in the modern Oriya alphabet. The letter chh has been written by the sign for ksh; but the form of the letter is slightly different in chhatisi and chchadi both in line 189. B has been indicated by the sign for v. As is well known, e (even in Sanskrit words) is always pronounced as b in Oriya as in other East Indian languages.
The record is trilingual having four sections, the first and fourth in Sanskrit verse (written in Telugu characters), the second in Telugu prose and the third in Oriya prose. The Telugu section describing the boundaries of the gift village calls for some remarks. The words büruvu (silk cotton), udugula (Alangium Lamarckü), mömdugu (bastard teak), tige-mrömdugu (Butea superba), turga (coarse grass or Rottleria tinctoria), ravi (Ficus religiosa), marri (banyan tree) and tāḍi (palm), all denote the names of trees. In the expression damṭṭa-tādi (line 147), i.e. a pair of palm trees, the word damṭṭa is used for modern jamța, 'a pair, a couple'. In the compound words yerram-butta (lines 150, etc.) and nallam-buṭṭa (lines 174, etc.), the word putta, 'an ant-hill', is distinguished by the qualifying adjectives yerra, 'red', and nalla, 'black', both referring to the colour of the soil. The words kara (line 156) and dariye (i.e. dari, line 156) are used almost in the same sense of the bank or shore'. In the expression borra-nakka-viriki (line 155), borra (i.e. borra or boriya) means 'a hole or burrow' such as is made by animals, while nakka is a jackal' and virigi means 'ground with many cracks. The meaning of the expression may thus be a plot of dry land with many fissures and burrows made by jackals. The word kanama (lines 161-62) or kanuma means 'a gap' or 'a mountainous pass'. The form imchika (lines 164-65 and 172), a little', is used instead of the modern form imchuka. In the compound avurum-godu1 (line 171), the word kōḍu means 'a bed of bulrushes, a marsh', and avuru is a kind of grass. Due to saral-ādēsa, k is changed to g in this expression exactly as p has been changed to b in nallam-buṭṭa and yerram-buṭṭa. The word chautanumta (line 178) is interesting. It means a well with a parapet around. The word chauta is not found in the lexicons but is now in common use.
1 The same expression is also found in the Vilasa grant of Prölaya-nayaka, where it has been read as avurubāde. Cf. above, Vol. XXXII. p. 267, text lines 150-51.
