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No. 39]
SOME INSCRIPTIONS FROM U.P.
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temple. The characters, which are each about four inches in height, exhibit an admixture of the North Indian script and the South Indian alphabet of the Telugu-Kannada-speaking area of about the sixth century A.D. Interesting from the palaeographical point of view is the hollow triangle type of the top mäträ exhibited by the letters of the record. The southern type of & in line 1 has a triangle at the lower end of both its arms.
The inscription reads:
1 Rudraivara[b] pratishthipita[b]
2 Vila-putripa Ruda(dra)[k]* [*]
"[The god] Rudrēśvara is installed [here] by Rudraka, the son of Vetilā."
It is difficult to say whether Vetila is the name of Rudaka's father or mother. But there is little doubt that Rudaka hailed from the Telugu-Kannada-speaking region of South India. He may have been a hermit settled at least for sometime in these parts of the Himalayas.
VI.-Inscriptions at Jägēsvar
Jägeśvar is a pilgrim spot in the Almora District, about 22 miles from the city of Almora. It is famous for the temples of the gods Jagesvara and Mrityunjaya. There are also a few minor shrines near the said temple. The inscriptions are mostly pilgrims' records giving the names of persons (usually one, but more in a few cases) often without any case-ending and rarely in the sixth case-ending. They are usually in one line, only a few running into more lines than one.
On palaeographical grounds, these inscriptions, which are written in the North Indian (Siddhamätṛikā) characters, may be assigned to dates ranging between the eighth and tenth centuries A.D. The mark of punctuation used in some of the records is rather peculiar and therefore interesting.
A.-On the Mandapa Pillars and Walls of the Mrityunjaya Temple.
Nos. 1-3 of this group form a class by themselves. Their importance will be discussed under cach one of them separately. The other records of this section offer bare personal names in most cases. Among these latter, only a few of the names (cf. Nos. 5, 13, 17 and 24) are given in the sixth caseending, the other names being without any case-ending. Some of the personal names are peculiar and interesting. The honorific word éri is prefixed to many of the names.
It is difficult to say whether Vächchharāja (Sanskrit Vatsyarāja) of No. 5, whose name ends with the word rajan, was a ruler of any sort. The two persons mentioned in No. 5 apparently visited the pilgrim spot together. The same was no doubt the case with the three persons mentioned in No. 7. But it is not easy to determine whether No. 9 contains the names of two persons or the person in question had a double name. The name Gramaheri (Sanskrit Grāmabhēri) occurs four times in the records, in Nos. 6, 10, 12 and 23. It was apparently the same person who got his name engraved at different places. The name of Netraharisha occurs twice in Nos. 5 and 11 and that of Sankaragana, son of Sujuma, likewise in Nos. 13 and 17. Sankaragana is also mentioned in a record of the next group. In all these three cases, Sankaragana is mentioned along with another person named Ranavigraha who must have visited the place in his company. It has, however, to be noticed that, in all the cases, Sankaragana's name has been written in letters of much smaller size than the name of Ranavigraha. These two names remind us of king Ranavigraha Sankaragana (also called Mugdhatunga and Prasiddhadhavala) of the Kalachuri dynasty, who ruled over the Jabalpur region in the first half of the tenth century A.D. It is also interesting to note that Sankaragana's name, in all the cases, offers an instance of a person's mention as the son of another. This may have been done to distinguish him from a namesake, although no other Sankaragana is known from our records
