Presenting a Series of Royal Portraits in Fifth-Century Malwa: A Proposed Reinterpretation of the Chhoti Sadri Inscription.

• Author: Salomon, Richard

1. THE CHHOTI SADRI PRASASTI

   The Chhoti Sadri (Chhoti Sadrl, Pratapgarh District, Rajasthan) inscription of Gauri (figs. 1-2) is by any measure a remarkably poor specimen of the prasasti genre. Its first editor, the venerable D. C. Sircar, opined that "the author's style is weak as his knowledge of the Sanskrit language and skill in handling the metres were both very poor... There are numerous cases of... attempts of a desperate and ludicrous nature to save the metre at the cost of grammar" (1953-54: 122). Its second and only other editor, Daniel Balogh, concurs, quoting Sircar's judgment and adding his own criticism to the effect that its "language use is in general sub-standard... Syntax is imprecise with the result that the meaning is often vague. Compounds are also handled with a cavalier attitude... Grammatical gender is sometimes problematic... Prosody is handled with a great amount of license" (2019: 115). Besides these defects, the poet also takes frequent liberties with details such as sandhi (e.g., sa gamat, v. 13c) and the ordering of words in compounds (e.g., 5c: rajya-jita-pratapo, presumably for *pratapa-jita-rajyo; Balogh translates "His power had conquered kingdoms"). Despite his less than impressive performance, the author sees fit to take a bow in a colophon at the end of the inscription in which he identifies himself as Bhramarasoma, son of Mitrasoma and descendant (?) of Jivaddharana (jivaddharana-samutpannasya).

   The inscription records, in thirteen verses in vasantatilaka and sragdhara meters, the construction of a temple (prasada) for the Goddess (devyah) by Maharaja Gauri in the year 547 of the Malava (= Vikrama) era, equivalent to 490-91 CE. (1) Gauri was the fifth and last known member of a lineage calling itself Manavayani [sic] and the only member of the line who is directly attested in inscriptions, in this complete one and in another fragmentary inscription from Mandsaur (Sircar 1953-54: 127-32; Balogh 2019: 124-31). These Manavayani kings were contemporary with the powerful Aulikaras and their territories must have been very close, as Chhoti Sadri is only some fifty kilometers from the Aulikara capital of Mandsaur (Mandasor; ancient Dasapura) in the Malwa (ancient Malava) region of western India. However, the political relationship between the two dynasties remains unclear (Sircar 1953-54: 130-31; Balogh 2019: 30-31).

2. STYLISTIC PECULIARITIES OF THE CHHOTI SADRI PRASASTI

   Fortunately, this historical conundrum does not concern us here, nor does the peculiarly poor quality of the language of the Chhoti Sadri inscription. Rather, this article is concerned with its unusual rhetorical structure and what that structure might imply for its public function. We find in it unusual stylistic features (as opposed to grammatical irregularities) right from the first verse, indeed in the first word of the inscription, where the mahgala-sloka opens with the grammatical subject, namely "the goddess" (devi), and the accompanying verb "conquers" (jayati):

   devijayaty asura-darana-tiksna-sula prodgTrnna-ratna-makutansu-cala-pravaha singhogra-yukta-ratham asthita canda-vegah bhru-bhamngga-dristi-vinipata-nivistarosah Triumphant is the Goddess, whose sharp spear pierces the demons; a stream of shimmering rays pours forth from the jewels in her crown; she rides (2) with terrifying speed a chariot yoked with fierce lions, her fury concentrated in the striking of the eyes in her frowning face. This verse is stylistically unusual in comparison with mangala verses in prasasti inscriptions generally and specifically with the mangala verses from the period and region, that is, western India of the fifth and sixth centuries CE, which are compiled in Balogh 2019. More typical, for example, are the three slokas at the beginning of the approximately contemporary (515-16 CE) Risthal inscription of Prakasadharman (Balogh 2019: 147), in which the subject/agent and verb are deferred to the second half of the verse, and sometimes to the very end of it as in verse 1: (3)

   vamena sandhya-pranipata-kopaprasanginarddhena vighattyamanam pinakinas santi-v(*i)dh(*e)yam a(*r)ddham v(*a)m(*e)tara(*m) vas sivam adadhatu The peaceable right half of Pinakin (Siva), which is being torn from his left half that grows angry on account of his bowing to Sandhya--may it bestow blessings upon you! Here the subject, arddham, referring to the right, male half of Siva's form as ardhanarisvara, is deferred to the end of the third pada, and the main verb, adadhatu, to the very end of the verse. In the second verse of the same inscription the verb, jayati, is placed at the beginning of the third pada while the subject, bhagavatprakasah, is deferred till the very end:

   ranesu bhuyassu bhuvo mahimne bibhartli yah karmmukam atata-jyam jayaty asau svasya kulasya ketur llalama rajnam bhagavat-prakasah He who carries in many battles a bow strung for the glory of the world; victorious is that banner of his own family and emblem of kings, Bhagavatprakasah! The Risthal inscription thus employs the rhetorical technique so often seen in verses of this type, in which the subject or verb or both are deferred to create a tension and anticipation in the reader/hearer, who is invited to anticipate whom or what the string of modifiers in the prior part of the verse are describing, as a sort of test of his/her connoisseurship; compare Balogh's comment (2019: 180) on the opening verse of the Sondhni pillar inscription of Yasodharman, in which "only the very last word tells us that the stanza is about a standard [ketu] which bears the bull [of Siva] described above" (i.e., in the first two padas). As noted by Balogh (p. 180 n. 322), "This trick of delaying a key word or two until the end is a common stock-in-trade of Sanskrit epigrammatic poetry." It is therefore noteworthy that we find in the first verse of the Chhoti Sadri prasasti the much less common opposite strategy (4) in which the poet leads with the subject and verb; and even more so when this structure is repeated in the second verse, which continues praising the goddess, here in her beneficent maternal aspect in contrast to her wrathful manifestation in the first verse, (5) opening again with the subject and verb:

   bhuyo pi sa jayati ya sasi-sekharasya deharddham udvahati bhaktataya harasya ya bhakla-vatsalataya prabibhartti lokan mateva svakya-suta-premna-vivriddha-sneha Again triumphant is she who in her devotion to him bears half of the body of Moon-crested Hara, who supports the worlds with tenderness for her devotees like a mother whose love grows with affection for her own sons. This untypical fronting technique continues in the succeeding verses of this inscription in which the members of the Manavayani line are successively introduced. Leaving aside for a moment the transitional verse 3, we read in verse 4:

   tesam ayam ksapita-ksatra-ganari-paksa srimam yasaugha-suvibhusita-caru-vaksah prak punyasoma ili ksatra-ganasya maddhye yo raja-sabda-krita-murddhni ghatibhisekah Among them is this one, who demolished the forces of his many ksatriya enemies, glorious, his chest beautifully ornamented with abundant marks of his glory [i.e., scars]: Punyasoma, whose head was first anointed amidst a host of ksatriyas with a (sacred) vessel, granting him the title "king." Here the first member of the line, Punyasoma [sic], is introduced at the opening of the verse with the demonstrative pronoun phrase tesam ayam, while his name is deferred until the third pada. The second Manavayani king, Rajyavarddhana [sic], is similarly introduced in verse 5 with a demonstrative pronoun, tasya, referring back to his father. (6) The same structure is found in verse 6, introducing Rastrafvarddhana] with a demonstrative, tena [sic], again referring to his father. (7) The fourth member of the line, Yasagupta [sic] is then described in two verses (7-8), both again opening with demonstrative pronouns, namely ttasyapi and so yam respectively. Finally, the main subject of the inscription himself, King Gauri, is introduced and described in a sequence of four verses (9-12), each of which yet again begins with one or two demonstratives: ttasyaisa [sic], sah, teneyam, and tenesah [sic].

   This pattern can hardly be coincidental, and I am aware of no other examples of this stylistic turn among the many hundreds--probably thousands--of similar Sanskrit prasastis. It therefore seems reasonable to ask whether this unique structure reflects some special circumstance or motivation underlying the composition. A possible clue to some such special situation is provided in the transitional verse 3, which I have skipped over until now. Here, a narrator, presumably the poet Bhramarasoma himself, addresses his auditors/readers in the first person:

   tasyamh pranamya prakaromy aham eva jasram klrttim subham guna-ganogha-mayin nrpanam ye manavayani-kulodbhava-vamnsa-gaurah ksatre pade satata-diksita-yuddha-saundah Having paid obeisance to her, I now proceed to (describe) comprehensively the bright glory of the kings, comprising a vast multitude of virtues; (those kings) who shone bright in the lineage arisen from the Manavayani family, battling heroes constantly anointed among the ranks of ksatriyas. The introduction here of a first-person verb form, prakaromfi[i], is very unusual, perhaps unique in inscriptions of this type. (8) The first-person speaker is no doubt the bard Bhramarasoma, but normally the composers of prasasti inscriptions present their compositions only in the third person, remaining anonymous except for, sometimes, a signature line (also in the third person) in a colophon.

   Here in the third verse the author announces a transition between the two preliminary prayers to the goddess and the subject of the text proper, namely the eulogy of Gauri and his ancestors and the commemoration of Gauri's construction of a temple to the goddess (v. 12, prasado... devyah). The transition is marked in the first half of this verse, which...