EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
VOLUME VI.
No. 1.—AIHOLE INSCRIPTION OF PULIKESIN II.;
SAKA-SAMVAT 556.
By F. Kielhorn, Ph.D)., LL.D., C.I.E.; Gottingen.
This inscription is on the east side- wall of an old temple called Meguti, at Aihoje in the Hungund taluka of the Bijapur (formerly Kaladgi) district. 1 It was first edited, with a photo-lithograph, by Dr. Fleet in Ind. Ant. Vol. V. p. 67 ff., and a revised version of the text and translation, with an improved photo-lithograph, has been given by the same scholar, ibid. Vol. VIII. p. 237 ff., and Archcuol. Surv. of West. India, Vol. III. p. 129 ff. I re-edit the inscription at the suggestion of, and from an estampage supplied to me by, Dr. Fleet himself, who was anxious to publish the accompanying photo-lithograph which is the first true facsimile of this record. In common fairness I am bound to state that Dr. Fleet's edition, published more than twenty years ago, was an excellent piece of work, which has been of great assistance to me ; and I would wish it to be understood that I consider any improvements in the reading or interpretation of the text which I may be able to offer, to be mainly due to the rapid advance of Indian epigraphy, brought about to no small extent by Dr. Fleet's own exertions.
The inscription contains 19 lines of writing, of which nearly the whole of line 18 and the short line 19 apparently are a later addition of little importance, which may be left out of consideration in these introductory remarks. The writing covers a space of about 4′ 9″ broad by 2′ ½″ high; it is well engraved, and generally in an excellent state of preservation. The size of the letters is between ½″ and ⅝″. The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets ; they are of the regular type of the characters of the Western Chalukya records of the period to which the inscription belongs. Of initial vowels, the text contains the signs for a, d, i and u, and of the signs of the ordinary Sanskrit consonants, all excepting ḍh ; but chh, ṭh and the rare jh2 ôjjhati, 1. 7) occur only as subscript letters. The alphabet also includes the signs of the jihvâmûlîya (e.g. in Ravikîrttik-kavitâ at the end of line 17), the upaadhâmânîya (e.g. in yaẖ=prabhavaẖ=purusha-, 1. 1), and the Draviḍian ḷ (e.g. in Mâḷava, 1. 11, and puḷina-,
1 See Revised Lists of Antiquarian Remains Bombay Fret., p. 183. ' It is strange that none of the published palseographic Tables should give a single instance of the southern form of jh from an inscription. The form of the subscript jh used in the present inscription is almost identical with the one employed in the first Cambodian inscription (in the word ujjhita in line 7, Inscr. 8ansorites du Cambodge, p. 13, and Plate), the alphabet of which in other respects essentially differs from that of the Western Chalukya inscriptions. B Digitized by Google
