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JAINA EPIGRAPES : PART 1
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INSCRIPTION No. 2 (Found in a Temple at Hupasi-Hadagali) The stone slab containing this inscription was kept in the verandah of a Jaina temple at Huņasi-Hadagali. It measures 46 inches in length and 31 inches in breadth. Except in a few places the epigraph is on the whole wellpreserved and runs to 67 lines. The following figures are carved in the space at the upper end of the stone above the writing. The effigy of the seated Jina with the triple umbrella stands in the centre. On its two sides are depicted in a symmetrical manner the figures of an upright dagger and a cow with a calf, characteristic symbols of a religious gift issued under the authority of the ruling power. A little above these on either side are the representations of the sun and the moon, eternal luminaries of the heaven witnessing the law of the dharma in mortal transactions.
The epigraph is incised in the old Kannada script of the 11th century A. D. and the characters are normal for the period. The punctuations are sometimes denoted with spirals. The orthographical conventions of the times, such as reduplication of the consonant in a conjunct after r, the peculiar mode of expressing the upadhmāniya (e. g., amtarpura in l. 13), etc., are generally followed. A few traits, however, in regard to the doubling of consonant, which are not confined to this inscription alone, but are of common occurrence in the epigraphical writings of this age including the present collection, may be noted here. The ? after r is followed not by the same member of the lingual class, but by its dental counterpart; e. g., karnnike in l. 2, Pūrnnachandra in l. 23. Under similar circumstances the aspirate gh, th and dh are combined not with the same aspirate syllables, but with their unaspirate counterparts, which usually precede them; e. g., Argghyatirtha in l. 58, parārttha in l. 39 and Varddbamāna in l. 25. In two instances the kula is wrongly replaced by the Dravidian rala, obviously due to scribal indiscrimination, e. g., pālaka in l. 7 and aldu in l. 15.
But this tendency is noticeable in greater measure in some epi. graphs of this period, i. e., about the 12th century A. D., collected by me in this area. The reason for this confusion and promiscuity seems to be that the ordinary people had by this time begun to lose the sense of understanding the subtle and technical difference between these consonants. The epigraph also contains other instances of incorrect writing. These have been corrected in the body of the text itself or in the footnotes. The language of the record
1 An appalling instance of this promisouity may be cited in an epigraph found in the
temple of Kālalinga at Martūr near Gulbarga, dated in the Chålukya Vikrama year 48. In this inscription even such familiar and well-known words as jaļaja, dbarātala, eto, are spelt as jalaja, dharătala, etc,
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