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FEBRUARY, 1997.]
RASHTRAKUTA GRANTS FROM TORKHEDE.
39
Madhu kêśvara, doubtless, become one with Siva. All those mortals who pray thus, 0 god Sambhu, residing in Vanavasi! O Madhukêśvara, mercifully save me, who am trembling in fear in this wordly life,' are to go to Knilása. So saying, the followers of Siva, triumphing and singing praises, went away. O Dvijas54 (Brahmans), this is the most success-giving of all the (holy) places of 'Siva. This place is the giver of beatitude and is Siva's favourite spot.”
(To be continued.)
THE VILLAGES IN THE GUJARAT RASHTRAKUTA GRANTS FROM
TORKHEDE AND BARODA.
BY GEORGE BUHLER, PH.D., LL.D., C.I.E. In the Torkhede grant of the Gujarat Rashtrakůta Govinda, published by Dr. Fleet in the Erigraphia India, Vol. III. p. 53 ff., the local chieftain Buddhavarasa grants the village of Govattana, belonging to the estate of twelve villages, called Siharakkhi, to the community of the Chaturvedins of Badarasiddhi. Dr. Fleet has already stated that Siharakkh: must be the modern Serkhi, mentioned in the Postal Directory of Bombay, and must lie close to Baroda. The identification is phonetically unobjectionable and certainly correct. For the Trigonometrical Survey Map of Gujarat, No. 29, shows Serkhi north-west of Baroda, on the river Men, a tributary of the Mahi, in N. Lat. 22° 20, and E. Long. 73° 8'. A little further north lies the small hamlet of Kotna, which may be identified with Govaftana, or rather its equivalent Govattanaka. Govastanaka would regularly become Góf ná in Gujarati. But the hardening of the medial consonants, which is not rare in Pali and in later Prakrit dialects, occurs also in the vernaculars. Badarasiddhi, where the donees resided, is the modern Borsad in the Kaira Collectorate. The fact that badara becomes in Prakrit bôra is well known, and is particularly mentioned by Hemachandra in his Prakrit Grammar, I. 170. The vernacular equivalent is bôr. The second part of the compound siddhi must in Gujarati become sidh, as short final vowels are invariably dropped, as in nát for fiáti and numerous other words. The form of the name, Borsidh, which thus results, is, I believe, still occasionally used and found also in the name of the Brahmans of the town, who are called both Borsidhas (Sherring's Indian Castes, II. p. 261) and Borsadas. The more common form Borsad is the result of the tendency of the Gujaratis to substitute a fori - whereby they convert, as the proverbial saying is, even Sive into a corpse, Sava, and to drop the aspiration of aspirated consonants. I may add that Bôrsad is not very distant from Serkhi-Siharakkhi.
A Brahman of the Borsad-Badarasiddhi community is also the donce in the Baroda grant of the Gujarat Rashtrakūta Dhravarája II., published by Dr. Hultzsch, ante, Vol. XIV., p. 196 ff. The name of the town is spelt in this case Vadarasiddhi, because the grant does not use the letter ba, but invarably expresses it by va. The majority of the other geographical names mentioned in the grant is traceable on the Trigonometrical Survey Map of Gujarat, No. 8, in the Daskroi Taluka of the Ahmadîbâd Collectorate. But it is necessary to correct the reading in l. 31 (p. 200), where Dr. Hultzsch doubtfully reads ogramôparata[sta]silávallinámd. The bracketted letter is really a badly formed á, as may be seen from a comparison of the á in icandrárkka” (1. 34) and achhetta (. 45). The name of the village is, therefore, in reality Åsilavalli.
With this correction we obtain the following data from the grant, which may be at once confronted with those on the map mentioned :
GRANT.
MAP. Village granted : Pubilāvilli
0 in the District :
Kabahrada
Kasandra!
- Dvijas (lit., twice-born, Brahmaps).
1 In N. Lat. 22° 54' and E. Long. 72° 32.
