1837.] Account of an Inscription from Bar eilly. 7T3 



Kamala'ka'nta asserts that the language and poetry of this 

 inscription is superior to any thing he has yet seen of the sort. This 

 is partially visible in the translation, where, although to our taste 

 hyperbole superabounds, the elegance and applicability of the eulogis- 

 tic metaphors is very perceptible. This translation is again the work 

 of my youthful assistant Sa'roda'prasa'd Chakravartti', merely 

 idiomatized a little by myself : it is nearly literal throughout. 



The facts made known to us by the text are altogether new. We 

 have heard neither of the Chhindu race, nor of raja Lalla. He was 

 it seems the son of Malhana the younger brother, (charge d' affaires, 

 and probably an usurper,) of Mdnschanda prdtdpa, written *Tf^3 

 sr?rTTr, a name which the pandit insists upon converting to Ma'rtanda 

 Prata'pa (powerful as the sun), as more consonant with Hindu 

 nomenclature. Ma'nschanda's father was Viravarma who is simply 

 stated to be of the race of Chyavan, a mahdrlshi of mythologic fame, 

 who captivated and married the daughter of one raja Sarjati ; but as she 

 disapproved of his venerable age, he interceded with Aswinikumar, 

 dipped himself in a pond and was rejuvenilized in the shape of that 

 god. On the celebration of his nuptials, the gods being present, 

 Indra, astonished at his new disguise levelled his thunder at the muni, 

 who then petrified the god with his frown, as is stated in the text. 



The temples thus appear to have been built by a petty raja and his 

 wife, in the Sam vat year 1049 at a village called Mayuta in the dis- 

 trict of Bhusana. Enjoying the advantage of proximity to Canouj, they 

 procured good poets and artists to sing and record their praises. 



This is the first time I have remarked the name of the alphabetical 

 character mentioned. It is called the Kutila, by which denomination 

 we must in future describe all documents written in the same hand, 

 mid-way between the modern Deva-nagari and the Gauri type. I have 

 given a specimen and the alphabet in Plate XLI. It is a peculiarity 

 that the vowels or diphthongs ai and ao, are always written like e and o 

 with a single mark above the line. The long i d and ai, initial, do not 

 occur. 



Transcript in modern Deva-ndgari. 



5 f 2 



