________________
MARCH, 1892.]
MISCELLANEA.
93
MISCELLANEA. AN EARLY KADAMBA ROCK INSCRIPTION. A FOLKTALE ABOUT THE KOMATIS.
The following rock-cut inscription, in two lines, The Kômatis are generally the merchant class of was discovered by Mr. Govind Gangadhar Desh- Southern India. Economy and frugality are their pande, at the falls of the Ghataprabha near characteristic traite. If a person goes to a Komati Konnur, in the Gókák Taluka, Belgaum District. bázdr to purchase anything, the merchant is all I transcribe it from estampages made by him; a politeness to him and entreats him to take a seat. note on them indicates that the inscription is This politeness is partly superstitious, and leads " on the face of the cliff on the right of the to one curious practice. Supposing a purchaser falls."
asks for pappr (or dál) and the Komati has
none with him he will never say ledhu (no), but TEXT.
will answer "Suomi, uppuundhi, Sir, there is salt." 1 Pitfi' bhaktas=suchir=ddaksba[b] Baty. "No" is considered to be a word of ill-omen otskha-pratåpavên LI ]
and is never heard from a Kömati's mouth. In giv. 2 Kadambanam kule játaḥ srim&n=Damo. ing an answer to do duty for "no," Komati will daro pripah [ll *]
usually try to rhyme to the purchaser's remarks.
To the popular mind the word Komati, or TRANSLATION
rather Knimati, taken to be ku (good)+ mati intel. Dutifulto(his) father, pure, intelligent, possessed
lect), means a man of aense or a clever man. of courage and energy and vigour,-(such is) 1 In this connection the following story about the illustrious king Damodara, born in the the Komatis is told :family of the Kadambas.
"Once upon a time a Pandiyan king had a new This record gives us a new name in the Early silver goblet of enormous size made for the use of Kadamba family, and may perhaps be taken to the palace, and he superstitiously believed that its indicate a point to the porth-east to which the first contents should not be of the ordinary kind. territories of the kings of that line extended. So in view of making a special use of it, he ordered Damodara is probably to be allotted to a period his minister to publish it abroad that all the subnot long after the last of the connected names jects of his kingdom were to put into the vessel a given in my Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, chembu full of milk from each house. The frugal p. 9.
Kômatis, heuring of this, thought each within
himself, Oh! when the king has ordered such a Another point of interest in this record, is, that the characters, which belong to the
large quantity, and all will bring milk, it will be southern class of alphabets, are of the same "box
enough for me to take a chembu full of water, as
a little water poured into such a large quantity of headed" type with those used in the Eran in
milk will not change its colour. It will not be scription of Samudragupta and the Nachnê-ki-taldi and Siwan Vakataka records (Gupta Inscriptions,
known that I poured in only water, and I shall pass pp. 18, 283, 243). The size of the letters varies
off as having given my tribute. In this way
all the Kömatis brought each a chembu full of from 21" to 4'; the largest akshara not formed entirely between the lines of writing, - vis., the
water, and no one of them told the other of the
deceit he was about to practise. Now, it so erf of Sriman, line 2,- is about ten inches from
happened that the Kömatis were the first to top to bottom. Line 1 is about 4' 4'' long; and line 2, about two inches longer. It should be
enter the palace, while they thought that the noted how the visarga is assimilated to the follow
people of other castes had come and gone. The ing sibilant in 'bhaktab=buchiro, line 1; but the
vessel was placed behind a screen, so that no
one might cast the evil eye on it and the Komatis same is not done at the ends of the first and third quarters of the whole verse.
were let in one by one to do honour to it. This
they did in all haste and each returned with great Near the above record, there occurs twice the joy in the success of his deceit. Thus there was name of ari-Damodara : once in "box-headed " nothing but water in the vessel. Now it had characters of precisely the same type; and once been arranged that the king was to be the in the characters customarily used in the Early person to see the contents of his new vessel, and Western Chalukya records.
and when he went to the apartment where the J. F. FLEET. ! vessel was kept and saw its contents, he was
1 Metre, Blóks (Anushțubh).
