Indian Antiquary Vol 19

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 14

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1890.
p. 104), where the words snagudake vandu, plainly mean “having come to Maguda, i.e. Makuta." And, in line 13-14 of the present inscription, the name of the god distinctly occurs as Makuteśvaranatha ; not in the now current form of Mahakatêsvara. The temples are in a courtyard, the chief entrance to which is a gateway at the north-east corner of it. About ten yards to the east of this gateway there lay, at the time of my visit, a close-grained red-sandstone monolith pillar, which is called in the inscription itself, and in one of the additions below it, a dharma-jayastambha or 'pillar of victory of religion,' measuring about 14 6" in height, exclusive of the kalasa or capital, and about 1' 9" in diameter, with sixteen sides or faces; the kalasa, which lay close by, is about 1'7" high, and of a circular shape, about 2 8}" in diameter, with thirty-six deep flutes running down it, and with a square top. The inscription is on the lower part of this pillar,
The writing, including the extra two lines at the bottom, covers a space of about 5' 3" broad by 32" high ; each of the full lines running entirely round the pillar. It is in a state of fairly good preservation throughout; very few letters being actually destroyed. But it has suffered somewhat from the weather; and for this reason, and because of the colour of the material in which it is engraved, it is very difficult to read on the original stone. The inscription itself consists of sixteen lines; and the first line is the lowest. Line 1 runs round the pillar on the same level; the other lines wind upward, with, in some instances, considerable irregularity in the directions along which they run; and, partly to shew the way in which the end of one line runs into the beginning of the next, and partly because in a few instances an akshara lies, not entirely on either the first or the last face of the stone, but on the dividing edge between them, the lithograph has been so arranged as to repeat an akshara or two at the beginning and end of each line. Below the inscription proper, there is a line of writing, beginning on the fourteenth face and continuing nearly all round, in well-formed characters of exactly the same type with those used in the body of the record, which rung - Aryyapura-vasakah Pubesasya sutau sthapitâ idam dharmma-jayastambha vyâparakaś=cha tau; the language is inaccurate, bat the meaning is, "the two sons of Pubesa, residents of the town of Aryapura, set up this pillar of victory of religion; and they are traders." And below this, in characters not quite so well formed, there are, on the first four faces, the words - Data Ana kat[t]idapu (or perhaps katidapu) kami bh]a, which either specify the maker or makers of the pillar, or possibly give the names of the two sons of Pabesa; and, on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh faces, there are some seven or eight letters as to the meaning of which I cannot satisfy myself. - The char. acters belong to the southern class of alphabets, and are of the regular type of the period and locality to which the record belongs. The average size of the letters is between "and l'; but the dhi of yathavidhi, line 1, is 1 high ; and there are some other instances of a percep. tible excess over the average size. The engraving is bold and good throughout. Palæographically we may note that in adhirúdhé, line 8, the dh is expressed, not by a separate sign of its own, but by the sign which stands for d and d. Also, that in margalésa, line 8, the vowel é is expressed, not by a modification of the upper part of the l which induces much confusion between li, ui, le, and le, but by a distinct sign attached to the lower proper right side of the 1, which leaves no doubt whatever that the vowel é was intended here; the same vowel-mark, bat placed somewhat higher, is used in the le of polekési, in line 8 of the Nerûr grant of Pulikesin II. (ante, Vol. VIII. p. 44, and Plate). - The language is Sansksit; and the style is good throughout, except for three peculiar mistakes of gender in lines 12 and 13. With the exception of two benedictive and imprecatory verses quoted in line 15 f., the whole record is
1 Another instance of a pillar insoription commencing at the bottom and running upwards, is the Amaravati inscription of the Pallava king Simhavarman II., published by Dr. Hultzsch in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, 1986.87. In that case, however, the inscription is on only three out of eight faces; and the lines do not run round and mount in the manner in which they do here.
1 I take it that dharmina-jayastambha was intended to be in the accusative case, in apposition with idan, which is then a mistake for imam. Otherwise, taking it as part of compound, we might translate - "set ap this; and they are dealers in pillars of victory of religion,"