X.—BADAL PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF NARAYANAPALA.
By Professor F. Kielhorn, Ph.D., C.I.E.; Gottingen.
In November 1780 Charles Wilkins discovered in the vicinity of the town of Badul,1 in the Dinajpur District of the Province of Bengal, a stone pillar, about 12 feet high, which was found to contain, at a few feet above the ground, an inscription engraved in the stone. Some years afterwards he succeeded in deciphering and translating this inscription; and his translation was published in 1788, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. I, pages 131-144, with a drawing of the pillar and a specimen of the characters, and accompanied by some valuable remarks of Sir William Jones. In 1874 Mr. E. V. Westmacott obtained a careless and mutilated transcript of the original text from Pandit Harachandra Chakravarti, which, with a translation by Mr. Pratapachandra Ghosha, will be found in the Journal, Asiatic, Society, Bengal, vol. XLIII, part i, pages 356-63. I now edit the inscription, of which a complete and trustworthy text has not yet been published, from impressions which at Dr. Burgess' request the Government of India has had prepared by Mr. H. B. W. Garrick.
The inscription contains 29 lines of writing—28 full lines and one line only 5" long,—which cover a space of from V 8£" to 1' 10" broad by 1' 7f" high. With the exception of two aksharas each at the commencement of lines 1 and 2, and altogether sixteen aksharas at the commencement of lines 25-28, which have become illegible by the peeling off of the surface of the stone, and a few slightly damaged aksharas in the body of the inscription, the writing is well preserved and may be read with certainty through-out. The size of the letters is between ^" and " The characters are of the same type as, but decidedly more modern than, those of the Ghosrawa inscription, of which a photo-lithograph is published in the Indian Antiquary, vol. XVII, page 310, and may be assigned to about the end of the 9th or commencement of the 10th century A.D. They are skilfully formed and well engraved. The language is Sanskrit, and, excepting the short line 29, which merely records the name of the engraver, Vishnubhadra, the inscription is in verse. In respect of orthography the text calls for few remarks. The letter b is throughout denoted by the sign for v. Before v the consonant m has been retained, instead of being changed to anusvdra, in samvrita, line 6, bhrdntam = vikatam, line 8, samvalgitas, line 9, satdm = vismayah, line 10, vdchdm = vaibhavam, line 20, and tadrisam = vyadhita, line 24; and instead of anusvdra the guttural nasal has been used in vanse, lines 1 and 26, and vansasya, line 21; and the dental nasal in pdnsuh, line 7. We also have -sansi for -samsi, line 17, and -sanghater for -samhater, line 4. Besides, it may be noted that the rules of samdhi have not been observed in vidhivat Ralld- S line 11, and -pitdn chatur-, line 13; and that the sign of avagraha has been exceptionally employed in "bhidhd'bhavat, line 17 9 and °tdro 'vadat, line 21. As regards grammar I need draw attention only to the first compound in verse 11, which is formed incorrectly.
The proper object of the inscription is, to record (in verses 27 and 28) the erection of a pillar, bearing on its top a figure of the mythical bird Garuda,—the pillar on which the inscription still is, but the upper part of which is now missing, — by a Brahman,
1 See Montgomery Martin's (Buchanan Hamilton's) Eastern India, vol. II, page 672. [Badal Kacberi is in the south of the Dinajpur district, 3 miles south-west from the village of Mahgaibari, which is on the borders of the Sao una j argana of the Bagura (Bogra) district and 7 miles south-west from Damdama station on the Northern Bengal State Railway. Badal is in Long. 88° 58' E., Lat. 25° 5' N. {Indian Atlas, sheet 119), and the pillar is about a mile north from it. (Conf. Hunter V Stat. Acc. Bengal, vol. vii, p. 451, and vol. viii, p. 198)— J". B.~
