944 Description of a Colossal Jain figure [Sept. 



Virkrama, I presume, as we are iu Malwa, corresponding to A. D. 1 166, 

 and are both eulogiums upon Ramachandra, said to be the founder of 

 the temple. The phraseology of the eastern one is particularly poetical 

 and beautiful ; language more chaste and emblematical could scarcely 

 be selected, or associations more pure than that applied to Ramachan- 

 dra's fame, which is described as white as the moon, the kunda flower 

 and snow. The southern inscription specifies Ramachandra as the 

 builder of the temple, and departs from the name of Indrajit, given 

 to it in the preceding one, changing it to Surapatijit, a cognomen of 

 the same deity. It also gives an outline of his connections, making 

 him of the family of Devanandamuni, and pupil of Lokanandamuni, 

 and adored by Vana Raja, the Lord of the earth. Here is a distinct 

 name of a sovereign and, it would have been very satisfactory to have 

 discovered a reigning prince in him, but there is none to whom the 

 name applies. The nearest approximation in sound is Vana Raja, of 

 the Anhilwarra Dynasty, but his era was 417 years before, at which 

 time it is just possible the first temple was built during his reign, 

 Samvat 802. Who the reigning prince of Avanti in Sam vat 1223 may 

 have been, is not quite clear, but I think it can be fixed. From an 

 inscription of Colonel Todd's, given in the Transactions of the As. 

 Soc. Gr. Britain and Ireland, of a Copper plate grant found at Uj- 

 jayina, the ages of several kings are satisfactorily determined, and it 

 would seem that in Samvat 1200, only 23 years prior to the Indrajit 

 temple inscription, and Lachsman Varma, the 4th in descent from the 

 3d Raja Bhoja, was the reigning prince at Dhar, the then capital of 

 Avanti, subordinate to Jaya Singh of Patan, who had conquered his 

 grandfather, Nara Varma, and reigned in chief from Samvat 1150 to 

 Sumbut 1201. The successor of Jaya Singh, in Mr. Prinsep's list, is made 

 his son Ajayapala, without date, and on the same authority in the 

 Malwa line, Birsal is placed next to Lachsman Varma, but Colonel 

 Todd's inscription gives a successor to Lachsman, viz. his brother 

 Jaya Varma. Unfortunately this part of the plate was corroded, and 

 the date could not be made out, but it is not too much to assume that 

 as Lachsman reigned in Samvat 1200, and was above them, either he 

 or his brother and successor, Jaya Varma, was in power in 1223.* 



* Colonel Sykes, in his notes on the moral, religious and political state of India, 



