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SEPTEMBER, 1879.)
SANSKRIT AND OLD-CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
237
SANSKRIT AND OLD-CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
BY J. F. FLEET, Bo. C.S., M.R.A.S.
(Continued from p. 215.) No. LV.
| under my direct supervision, and is published AIHOLE, the ancient Ayyâ vole, is in Lat. herewith, with a revised translation and adA 16° 1' N. and Longit. 75° 57' E, on the ditional remarks, right bank of the Malå pahâri or Malaprabhê river, The inscription is one of the Western Cha. in the Hungund Talukâ of the Kalådgi District. luky a dynasty. It mentions the following It probably took its name from ayya, 'a Lingayat kings:priest', and pole, 'a river, a road, lustre'; and
Jayasimhavallabha, the Sanskrit form is Aryapura, where arya,
(Jayasimha I.) an honourable man, excellent, wise,' - which is sometimes used as a termination in the names
Raņaråga. of Brahmans, just as ayya is used as a termination in the names of Lingayats of the Jangama
Polekesi, class,-clearly represents the Canarese ayya,
(Pulikesi I.) and pura, a city,' is probably intended to take the place of the Canarese pole, used in the sense Kirttivarma I.
Mangalisa. of 'a road'. In the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., it was a Western Chaluky a Palikėsi II, or
(4 son not capital, and consequently is full of antiquarian Satyåśraya I.
named.) remains of interest. An account of some of The object of it is to record the erection of the architectural remains has been published & stone temple of the god Jinêndra by a by Mr. Burgess in his First Archeological Report. certain Ravikirtti, in Saka 556 (A.D. The inscriptions, however, still remain to be 634-5), during the reign of Pulik oś 1 II. noticed in detail.
When I first published this inscription, I read The earliest and most important of them is the the name of the third king, in l. 3, as Puli Sanskrit inscription at the temple called Mégati. kesi'. There is no doubt, however, that the This temple stands on the highest part of a rocky vowel of the first syllable is o here. As to the hill, west-south-west from the village, on the second syllable,--the characters li and le, as top of which are many dolmens or cromlechs, usually written at this time, are so much alike and in the south face of which, towards the that they may easily be confused. From a east end, is the Jain Cave described by Mr. comparison of all the instances in which there Burgess. Its name, Mêguți' or Myaguti, can be no doubt as to whether li is intended, is the rustic pronunciation of me-gudi, 8c. mél. or le, including those in which lê is the basis gudi, or mélu-gudi, 'the upper temple,' or the of lai, 18, or lau,--the only difference between temple which is up above (on the high place).' | them is that, in lē, the vowel-mark commences in The inscription tells us that the bailding was direct continuation of the upward stroke of the originally a Jain temple; but, as has been the 1, and is then brought round in a loop to the case with most of the Jain temples of these left to join the upward stroke again at the parts, it seems to have been afterwards adapted point at which it starts from it; whereas, in li, to the purposes of Linga worship. It is now the vowel-mark is more like a circle set on the disused, and has begun to fall in.
top of the opward stroke of the l, so that part The tablet containing the inscription is 4 feet of it lies to the right, and part to the left, of 114 inches broad by 2 feet 2 inches high, and the upward stroke : contrast, for instance, kálé, is let into the outside of the east side-wall of the in l. 16, and malinas, in 1. 8. The vowel i is temple. It has been edited by me, with attached to l in a similar way; see, for instance, lithograph from the estampage taken by myself, mauli, in l. 1. The second syllable, therefore, at Vol. V., p. 67. An improved facsimile has is certainly le here. In l. 7, on the other hand, now been prepared from the same estampage the name is undoubtedly 'Pulikes i'; the
* No. 73 of Pali, Sanskrit, and Old Canarese, Inscriptions; and Third Archological Report, Plate LXVI.
