Epigraphia Indica Vol 34

Author(s): D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 51

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[Vol. XXXIV mere rustics and husbandmen and that they lacked the appropriate literature of the Brāhmaṇas. The name of another village called Vadayilā (or Badayilā) mentioned in the insoription in line 4 was read by Colebrooke as Badayita and by Hall as Badapilā. Though the alphabet of the record does not distinguish clearly between pand y, the reading must be Vadayilā or Badayilā, since the locality is undoubtedly identical with the present village of Barailā lying about 10 miles towards the west of Tārāchandi, the findspot of the epigraph. There are also some other errors in the published transcript of the record. Moreover, neither Colebrooke nor Hall attempted to identify the three villages mentioned in the inscription. For these reasons, I edit the record in the following pages from inked impressions prepared under my supervision in January 1959.1
The characters of the record are Nägari of the twelfth century A.D. and closely resemble those of the contemporary Gāhadavāla epigraphs. As indicated above, there is no clear distinction between p and y, while b is indicated by the sign for v. Of initial vowels, we have i (line 5) and u (line 2). The language is Sanskrit and the inscription is written in both prose and verse. The orthography also resembles that of the contemporary inscriptions of the Gahadavālas. Some consonants following r have been reduplicated. Final m has sometimes been wrongly changed to anusvāra. Utköchya in line 2 has been spelt with final t without combining t and k into & conjunct. Both anusvārs and class nasals have been used side by side. Influence of local pronunciation is noticed in the spelling of the name Satrughna in the last line. The date of the epigraph is given as Wednesday, Jyōshtha-vadi 3, V.S. 1225. The details agree with the 16th April 1169 A.D.
The inscription begins with a symbol for Siddham which is followed in lines 1-3 by two stanzas in the Vasantatilaka metre. The auspicious word svasti stands at the beginning of the first verse as a part of it as in so many other records. The contents of these verses, which have to be read together as a yugmaka, are given in prose in lines 3 ff. with some additional details. In these stanzas, a ruler named Pratāpadhavala is represented as informing his descendants (vamsa) to the effect that the Brāhmaṇas (cf. vipraih) of Suvarnahala obtained from one Dēū, who was & servant of the king of Gadhinagara (i.e, modern Kanauj), a ku-tamra by fraud after having bribed [him], that no reliance should be made in the said grant or the Brāhmaṇas and that not even an iota of land in the villages near about Kalahandi? really belonged to the above Brāhmaņas. The word tāmra in the expression ku-tāmra has been used in the sense of a támra-sāsana or copper-plate grants and ku-tāmra may mean a forged document." It will be seen that in the above analysis we have taken the passage grāmēshv-amishu Kalahandi-samipagëshu in the third foot
1 On the basis of Colebrooke's transcript and translation, H. C. Ray says that the inscription announces as forged & grant of the villages of Kalahandi and Badapilä by the Kanyakubjadhipati Vijayachandra, which is said to have beon executed in the favour of certain Brāhmanas living in villagos adjoining Kalahandi' (DHNI, Vol. I, p. 534). As will be seen below from our analysis, this is not quite accurate. But Ray rightly observed that the record ought to be re-edited (loc. cit., note 3).
* See, e.g., above, Vol. IV, pp. 97 ff. and Plates. . Cf. Bhandarkar's List, No. 340; Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, p. 184, No. 143. * Soe, e.g., above, Vol. XXIX, P. 87, text line 1.
Cf. the word devah in the second foot of verse 1. Cf. the expression Alma-van-odbhavanam in the prose part in line 8.
* The name is spelt as Kalahandi in the prose part in line 3. The change seems to have been made in the verse for the sake of the metre.
Cf. JRAS, 1952, p. 4.
The word kus really means 'bad'. But of expressions like ku-jiana (imperfect or defective knowledge), ku-danda (unjust punishment), etc. Ku here means the same thing as kita (false, untrue or deceitful). The forged document referred to here has been recently discovered and will be published in a future issue of this journal.