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271
SEPTEMBER, 1889.]
BELUR INSCRIPTION OF JAYASIMHA III.
be well worth while to remove them to a Museum; this could probably be easily arranged, as I found that the temple was not used for purposes of worship; and, as the roof had begun to fall in, it is desirable that the images should be secured and removed. The presence of these three images in the shrine, is in accordance with line 34 of the inscription, which speaks of "the hall of the Traipurushas," i.e. of the three gods Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva. And the record shews that they date, with the temple, from in or about A.D. 1020. The inscription is on a stone-tablet which stands outside the temple, against the east or front face, on the south side of the door. As it is fixed in its position, I could not remove it, to place it in safety inside the temple; but I covered it with stones, so as to guard it from further injury.
The emblems at the top of the stone have at some time or another been purposely defaced; but enough of them remains to shew that they were: In the centre, a linga on an abkishékastand, with an officiating priest; on the proper right, the bull Nandi or Basava; and on the proper left, a cow and calf. There must have been also the sun and moon; but these have been quite destroyed. The writing covers a space of about 1' 9" broad by 5' 1" high. It is in a state of fairly good preservation; not many letters having been destroyed. The characters are the so-called Old-Kanarese characters, of the regular type of the period and locality to which the record refers itself. They include, in line 30, the decimal figures 4 and 9. The virama occurs only twice, in mediniyo!, line 13, and déviyar, line 28; and is represented by its own proper sign. In bedangiyum, line 27, we have very clearly the separate form of d as distinct from d. The engraving is bold and excellent. The language is Old-Kanarese; with four Sanskrit verses in lines 42 ff. And the inscription is in verse and prose mixed. - In respect of orthography, the only points that call for notice are (1) the preferential use of the anusvára, instead of the proper nasal; and (2) the repetition of bh, instead of its doubling by b, in nirbhbhatsaná, for nirbbhartsaná, line 16.
The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Western Chalukya king Jagadekamalla-Jayasimha III. And its object is to record that, while governing the district known as the Kisukad Seventy, his elder sister Akkadevi, apparently in memory of her elder brother Tribhuvanamalla-Vikramaditya V., made a grant of the Pêrar agrahara, and caused to be built there "a hall of the Traipurushas," the Elders of which granted some land for the purpose of feeding and clothing students. The inscription is of interest in giving an instance of the combined worship of the three gods, Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva. And we also learn from it that Akkâdêvî practised the religious observances of Jina and Buddha, as well as those of Vishnu and Siva.
As regards the identity of the names Pêrar and Belûr, there can be no doubt about the fact, though the record contains no specification of the boundaries of the Pêrûr agrahára. In the first place, there is no other name in the vicinity at all resembling Pêrür. In this part of the country, the only Herûr or Hêrår, written 'Yehroor' in the map, is in the Hungund Taluka, about twenty-seven miles from Bêlûr, in a north-easterly direction. And, though in the Parasgad Talukâ there is a Hirar, yet this is a different name altogether, and the village is about forty miles distant from Bêlar, to the east. And in the second place, the text tells us distinctly that "the hall of the Traipurushas," i.e. plainly the temple at which the inscription stands, was in the Pêrûr agrahára. I may mention that, in spite of the spelling in the map, Belloor,' which might be thought to indicate the short e, the é in Bêlûr is long. And the metre, in line 38, distinctly marks the & in Pêrûr as long. In this name, r has been changed to 7; an instance of the opposite change, from 1 to r, occurs in Kadalavalli, which appears elsewhere as Kadaravalli, and is now Kadarôlli (see the Kalbhavi Jain inscription, in the next number of this Journal).
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The date is given as Saka-Samvat 944, expressed in decimal figures, the Dundubhi samvatsara; the Uttarayana-Sankranti or winter solstice; a vyatipata; on Adityavara or Sunday. The month and the tithi are not given. And the details that are given, refer to the making of the grant; not to the writing of the record. By the southern luni-solar system, the Dundubhi sarhvatsara coincided with Saka-Samvat 945 current; i.e. with the
