348 Notice of Inscriptions in Behar. CMay, 



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No. 8 is in the Deva Nagri, and belongs to a class of inscriptions 

 bearing the name of Na'yka Prata'pa Dhavala Deva Raja oiJapila. 

 They are described by Mr. Colebrooke in the first volume of the 

 Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society (page 201), on inspection of 

 the facsimiles taken by Dr. Buchanan. 



No. 8 is that translated by that distinguished orientalist. " It is (to 

 borrow his words,) " an inscription on a rock, denominated, from an 

 " idol delineated on it, Tdrdchdndi, in the vicinity of Sahusram, in 

 " South Behar; and contains the protest of a chieftain named Pra- 

 " ta'pa Dhavala De'va, bearing the title of Ndyaca and that of Rdja 

 " of Japila, against an usurpation of two villages by certain Brdh- 

 " mdnas in his neighborhood, under colour of a grant, surreptitiously 

 " obtained through corruption of his officers, from the Raja of Gddhi- 

 " nagara or Cdnyacubja (CanojJ, who was the celebrated Vejaya- 

 " chandra. Its date is 1229 Samvat, corresponding to a. d. 1173." 



The obliteration of the first digit has led Mr. Ravenshaw to impute 

 to these inscriptions an age more remote by one thousand years than the 

 true era. 



No. 9 belongs to the same class, but is not described by Mr. 

 Colebrooke. The transcriber of No. 8 seems to have been no great 

 scholar;' but the transcriber of No. 9 is evidently quite illiterate. He 

 introduces his own Lata letters where they differ from the Deva Nagri, 

 and is baffled by the conjunct letters. From what is deciphered, this 

 appears to commemorate, by the Raja the construction of a road, " like 

 steps" from the Pratabali river to the top of the adjoining hill, on which 

 are impressions of the feet of Vishnu and Chandi. The seal of Biiiku 

 Pandit, the composer of the inscription, is on the slab, which besides the 

 fact commemorated, records some notice of this redoubtable Raja's 

 family. Parts of the slab are obliterated, but the transcription of what 

 is legible by a scholar, would enable us to give a more correQt analysis 

 of its contents. 



The impression of No. 10 is as imperfect and confused as those of 

 Nos. 1, 2, and 3; so that we must wait the receipt of a more correct im- 

 pression before we can hope to arrive at the contents of this stone. 



The four Persian inscriptions communicated by Mr. Ravenshaw, re- 

 quire little comment in addition to the notice by that gentleman. From 

 the first, we learn that in the time of Akbar " his servants had thou- 

 sands of powers," and that Said Surfaraz Khan, (one of them perhaps) 

 founded the Musjid, " a sublime shrine. He was a pious man, as it were 

 a sacred parterre in spring." 



From the second we learn, that Munir Raj built " this tomb of the 

 Imam of age." — In these verses the Prophet is piously apostrophized. 



