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No. 24-KHANDELA INSCRIPTION OF YEAR 201
(1 Plate) D. C. SIROAR, OOTACAMUND.
(Received on 8.7.1959)
The inscription under study is engraved on a stone slab lying in the house of Mahajana at Khandola in Shokhāvāti which was a District of the former Jaipur State in Rajasthan. It was noticed by G. H. Ojha in the Annual Report on the Working of the Rajaputana Museum, Ajmer, for the year ending 31st March 1936, pp. 2 and 9 (No. 2). There are two inked impressions of this inscription in the Office of the Government Epigraphist for India, which were apparently received from Ojha. My attention was drawn to this epigraph for two reasons. In the first place, the date of the record has been read in Ojha's report as the year 701 although the reading is very clearly 201. He refers the year to the Vikrama era and assigns the inscription to 644 A.D. which appeared to me to be somewhat earlier than the date suggested by the palaeography of the epigraph. Secondly, the palaeography of the inscription is remarkably similar to that of the Sakrāi (Sakarāya-mātā) temple inscription, which comes from the same neighbourhood, and a person named Adityanaga, son of Vödda, is actually mentioned in both the Khandela and Sakral epigraphe. It therefore appeared to me that the date of the Khandēla record might throw some light on the various reddings suggested by different scholars for the date of the Sakral inscription, viz. V.S. 879 (822 A.D.) by D. R. Bhandarkar, V.8. 749 (692 A.D.) by G. H. Ojha, and V.S. 699 (642 A.D.) by B. Ch. Chhabra.
The inscribed area on the stone slab measures about 18 inches in length and about 12 inches n height. There are only eleven lines of writing. The insoription is neatly and beautifully engraved. But the preservation of the writing is not quite satisfactory in all parts of the surface of the slab. The letters in the central section of the right side of the lower half are rubbed off. The characters belong to the Siddhamätçikā script (i.e. Northern alphabet) of the 8th or 9th century A.D. and they closely resemble, as indicated above, those of the Sakril inscription. The top mātrā of the letters is a scooped out triangle with its apex downwards. The letter din ®kridao (line 1; cf. also Mandao in line 11) is interesting as it resembles the form of the letter in Jain Nägarl. On palaeographical considerations, both the Khandela and Sakral inscriptions can be assigned to a dato midway between the Kanaswa inscription of 738 A.D. and the sägartā) (Gwalior) inscription" (c. 850 A.D.) of Pratihära Bhöja of Kanauj. The language of the record is Sanskrit and it is written in verse with the exception of a few sentences at the end in line 11. The word utpanna in' line 8 (verse 6) has been used in the sense of utpădita. Such soleoisms are sometimes noticed in epigraphic literature. In point of orthography also the epigraph under
1 Above, Vol. XXVII, pp. 27 ff. Sakral is only 14 miles to the north-west of Khandela.
* Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Western Circle, for the year ending 3let Maroh 1910, Pp. 12, 28, 86-87. See also Bhandarkar's List, No. 23.
Annual keport on the Working of the Rajputana Morum, Ajmer, for the year onding Blat March 1984, pp. 3 and 7 (No. 1).
. Above, Vol. XXVII, pp. 27 ff. and Plate. 80o Filliozat in L'Inde Classique, Vol. II, p. 694. Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, Plate facing p. 68. ABI, A.R., 1908-04, Plate fooing p. 280. Soo abovo, Vol. XXX, p. 122.
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