Sanskrit grammar inscriptions, Bhojashala, Dhar

Background Michael Willis wrote an article in Jan. 2012 issue of Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, attempting to show that the Sarasvati statue in British Museum is NOT that of Sarasvati but that of Ambika. (Michael Willis, 2012, Dhar Bhoja and Sarasvati: from Indology to Political mythology and back, JRAS, Series 3, 22,1, pp. 129-153), While he has failed in his attempt (as detailed in the note Annex A), there has been a greater failure in not reporting on a crucial piece of evidence establishing that the Sarasvati statue now in the British Museum was IN FACT, taken from the Sarasvati Temple at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. This evidence relates to two inscriptions of Sanskrit grammar in the Sanskrit school set up there by King Bhoja in the temple. This note discusses the provenance and details of these two inscriptions. Importance of the finds 1. Bomb. Gaz. Vol. I, p. 180, states that the mosque was an old Sanskrit School founded by Bhoja himself. 2. The contents of these Dhar sarpabandha (serpentine chart) inscriptions have been read and are demonstrated to relate to teaching Sanskrit grammar to students in a class room in Bhoja Shala, i.e. Bhojas Sanskrit school. 3. These two Sanskrit grammar inscription charts on stone were found on the pillars which support the dome of what is today Kamal Mosque. 4. The pillars on which the inscriptions were found relate to the temple for Sarasvati. 5. The Sarasvati statue in British Museum contains an inscription on its base and refers to her as Amb, NOT Ambik. Amb is another name for Sarasvati as noted in a Annex A citing Rigveda: ambitame, devitame, naditame Sarasvati. The second statue of Sarasvati in British Museum is that of Vgdevi (Divinity of Language. A reference to this statue also occurs on the inscription at the bast of the first Sarasvati statue where Vararuchi refers(in the inscription) to the fact that he had a statue of Vgdevi made and now he is getting the statue of Amb.. 6. The occurrence of the Sanskrit grammar inscriptions CONCLUSIVELY demonstrates evidence for the Hindu tradition of Sarasvati as divinity of education, learning, knowledge. 7. Temple for Sarasvati was part of the temple for vara (i.e.iva). An iron pillar (now broken into 3 pieces) comparable to the Delhi iron pillar lies in front of the temple
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complex of Dhar, attesting to the possibility that this pillar was a dvhajastambham (sacred pillar) of the temple. I suggest that Sanskrit experts should try to transcribe Inscription B also and make both the Sanskrit grammar charts an essential part of all schools teaching Sanskrit. I also suggest that a booklet be made of these inscriptions to constitute a guide for students and teachers of Sanskrit grammar in all institutions devoted to the study of Sanskrit. Excerpt from Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, 1991, Harihar Vitthal Trivedi, ed., Vol. VII, Part 2 Inscriptions of the Paramaras, Chandellas, Kachchapaghatas and two minor Dynasties, Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi (pp.86 - 88): [quote] No. 26; Plates XXVII-XXIX (Inscription A + duplicate and Inscription B) The Dhar inscriptions. These inscriptions, which are two in number and called here as A and B, were first brought to light by Ernest Barnes in his article on Dhar and Mandu, published in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXI, 1900-02, pp. 330 ff., with a photolithograph between pp. 350 and 351, in which he also incorporated a note on them by KK Lele, Superintendent of Archaeology in the former State of Dhar. Lele also prepared two official notes on the records (One of these was written in May, 1902, for presentation to Lord Curzon on the occasion of his visit to Dhar; and the other, in 1929. I am indebted to Shri AW Wakankar of Dhar, for lending me the only copies of these notes with him, for utilising them in this article); and a description of the inscriptions appeared also in his work entitled Dhar and Mandu, on pp. 29-30, along with that on the preceding one, as already stated. Subsequently the inscriptions were noticed briefly in the Annual Reports of the Western Circle of the Survey, for 1904-05, p. 8 (No. 2081) and again for 1912-13, pp. 21 and 55 (No. 2601); and finally, they were edited by KN Sastri, without facsimiles, in theEpigraphia Indica, Vol. XXXI, p. 29 f., along with the one that precedes and the other that follows.The inscriptions are edited here from my personal examination of the originals and from an excellent impression of one of them (B) which I owe to the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India. These inscriptions are on two separate pillars near the tomb of Kamal Maula mosque in the monument known as Bhoja-shala, in the south-west part of Dhar, the principal town of a district of the same name in Madhya Pradesh. The pillars are of grey lime stone and are among those that support the dome of the prayer hall, one on each side of the raised pulpit, Each of the inscriptions is complete in itself, though they are allied inasmuch as they deal with the same subject of Nagari alphabet and grammatical terminology. The letters are beautifully engraved and well preserved except that they have suffered from partial decay and peeling off in some places, as the material of grey lime stone on which they were cut was not quite suitable for incisions. (I am thankful to Shri Deshpande, technical assistant in the Arch. Surv. Of India at
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Mandu, for the information that the stones of the pillars are similar to those found in quarries in the adjoining region, for example, at Tarapur, etc.) Here we may also point out that quite a large number of some other inscriptions which were incised on the floor or pavement of the same structure, appear to have been deliberately chiseled off so as to leave a letter here and there, in some later time, were all on durable black stone, whereas the inconspicuous position of the pillars appears to have saved them from the fate which the other inscriptions have undergone due to vandalism. (Now nothing can be made out of these inscriptions except that they were in Sanskrit and Prakrit).

A. The first of these inscriptions, which is on the proper right side of the pulpit and faces the east, measures about 70 cms. in height and 30.5 cms. in breadth. The letters of the alphabet are about 1 cm. in size, while those of the terminations in the tail are slightly smaller. The inscription is written in the Nagari alphabet of about the 11-12th century. The language is Sanskrit. It is an alphabetical chart and its contents are identical with those of its counterpart in the Mahakala temple inscription, as seen above. As the alphabet plays the chief part in this inscription, it has rightly been called alphabetical. B. This inscription, which is on the proper left side of the raised platform and faces the south, is bigger in size, being 91.55 cms. high and 45 cms. in breadth. The language is Sanskrit; and the palaeographical and orthographical peculiarities are the same as stated above. The inscription commences with two verses in the Anushtubh metre, with the symbol for svasti in the beginning. They are written in four lines, in a space 17 cms. broad and by 5 cms. high. They are identical with verses 86-87 of the Ujjain inscription and are not marked. Below the verses and leaving a vacant space measuring 13 cms. in height, we find a chart (bandha) made up by the intertwining of two serpents, probably male and female, as Lele has rightly remarked, exhibiting on their body the personal terminations of ten lakras (tinvibhaktis) together with 16 dhtu-pratyayas. The chart may be divided in three parts, viz., the top, the middle and the bottom portions. In the top section the letters are very indistinct except for the initial atha, and they have been conjecturally restored by Sastri as atha tin-vibhakti-bandhah; but as already remarked by Sircar while publishing Sastris article, the letters appear as atha dhtuh. (See Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXI, p. 29, n. The letters are rather indistinct; but I read atha dhtuh between the heads of the serpents and the word pratyaya straight down the base.) The middle section of the chart is shaped as a square standing vertically on one of the angles of the top section. It is divided into 180 compartments, each of which is a parallelogram cut by drawing nine parallel lines one way and seventeen the other way across. The space between each pair of parallel lines, as remarked by sastri, is alternately closed by means of projecting loops at eigther end along the four sides of the square turning the sets of parallel lines into two running spirals end to end. The five loops and the five intervening open spaces between them, in the upper left arm of the square, contain the initial letters of the terms denoting the different
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senses in which the ten lakras, i.e., the tenses and moods of Sanskrit verbs, are used. These letters are, in serial order, va, sa, vi, hy, a, pa, sva (va), , bha and kri, respectively standing for vartamna, sambhvan, vidhi, hyastana-atta, atta-smnya, paroka, vastana-bhaviyati, r, bhaviyat and kriytipatti or kriykrama, indicating, respectively, the ten lakras from la to lin, excepting the Vedic l and taking vidhi-lin and rlin separately. Thus there are altogether 18 X 10 = 180 verbal terminations, of which, 90 of each set (known as parasmai- and tmanepada) are given in the chart. (In his note Lele red the letter hya as pa and the preceding letter as sa, and took them as for pancam and saptam, remarking that they are so called because they are the 5th and 7th in the usual enumeration of the tenses. But to me the consonant of this letter appears as p and the sign of the mtr is clear, though mutilated.) They are all duly numbered on the right hand side and arranged in slanting columns from the left to the right, given in the spaces left between the zigzag cross-turnings of the serpents. The two sets of terminations (parasmai- and tmane-), the three persons (prathama, madhyama and uttama) and the three numbers (singular, dual and plural) are marked on the left-hand side, in order, by the initial letters representing them; and the names of the tenses and moods are marked at the top of each column by the initial letter of each. They may be arranged as under: Intials 1. Va 2. sa 3. vi 4. hya 5. a 6. pa 7. va 8. 9. bha 10. kri Full name vartamna sambhvan vidhi hyastan adyatan parok vastan h bhaviyant Kriytipatti or kriykrama Paninis name la lin l lan lun li lu rlin l i lin English name Present Potential Imperative Imperfect Aorist Perfect First Future Benedictive Second Future Conditional

The last section of the table is triangular, with its apex above. In its looped corner and also in the hollow circles along its arms, are engraved the several derivative bases showing causality, desire, intensity, etc. The portion of the stone in the right corner side, which appears to have contained at least three circles with a letter in each, is entirely lost; but, to judge from what remains, the total number of these circles appears to have been 19, as also stated inside the triangle in its middle. (Sastri read this number as 16, but I am tempted to take the unit figure as 9 because of the curve at the top which is broader than the one below). These terminations are only of grammatical interet and therefore need not be dealt with here in detail. (For details of these, see Sastris article referred to above. He also remarked that the terminations are in agreement with the Chndra system of grammar whereas, according to Lele, it is in agreement with that of Ktantra.) Both these inscriptions are of educational interest, also showing the high interest of the public in teaching and learning grammar. In this respect, what KK Lele writes in his note referred to above is highly appealing, and it is given here in his own words. He says: 'they must have been designed by some ingenious teacher and permanently engraved on the pillars as charts in modern schools...They confirm the tradition that the mosque (on the pillars of which they are engraved) was merely a transformation of the Sanskrit School formed by Raja Bhoja and maintained by his successors. The old foundation too tells the same tale. It is, therefore, beyond doubt that the mosque was not only built out of the materials of, but stands on the site of the old Schools.' (Note: In this connection, see Bomb. Gaz. Vol. I, p. 180, where it is stated that the mosque was an old Sanskrit School founded by Bhoja himself. Attention is also invited to the inscription on the pedestal of the Sarasvati image, edited above (No. 14). [unquote]

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2011 Saraswathi Temple Makes Way For Mosque MOSQUE INSIDE A SARASWATHI TEMPLE

The Paramara dynasty which ruled part of the present day Madhya Pradesh from the 8th Century A.D. onwards reached the pinnacle of its glory during the reign of King Bhojaraja during the first half of the 11th Century A.D. He was known as the ruler of Ujjain and Dhara. This Dhara is the same as the State of Dhar which was a part of the Central Provinces, now renamed Madhya Pradesh. King Bhoja was probably a boy of 15years or so when he ascended the throne and during his reign from 1010 to 1060 A.D, the country attained the highest state of eminence and the Paramaras rose to the zenith of their power. Bhoja Raja was not only a great and popular king but was an equally great man of letters who authoured nearly 30 works on diverse subjects like Astronomy and Astrology, Medicine, Sanskrit Grammar, Philosophy, Alankara, Poetry and Prose, Lexicography, Dharma Shastra, Economics and Administration etc. In fact, he had read all the available books in Sanskrit on Kingcraft and Administration. He was skillful in the use of 36 weapons used in those days in warfare. His erudition was such that he could hold his own in learned debates against the greatest scholars at that time. His versatile mind did not limit the activity only to the business of war and writing. It was also extended towards building up a good number of educational institutions and temples and thus make Malwa an ideal kingdom. It is unfortunate that a good number of those constructions built during his regime were destroyed subsequently by the first conquest of Malwa by the Muslim rulers. Even the Bhojashala [college] founded by him in Dhar and housing a Saraswathi temple inside, was partially destroyed and made way for a mosque. The present day Kamal Mouli Mosque at Dhar stands at the same site which was once occupied by the Bhojashala. It is still recognized and called as Bhojashala by the local Hindus. The existing modern structure is Islamic in style and architecture and was constructed with the materials got out of demolishing the Saraswathi temple which stood on the same site as the college. When King Bhoja built the temple, he had installed an Ashtadhatu idol of Goddess Saraswathi [bust only] which is now in the custody of the British Museum in London. Late Dr. V. Raghavan, well-known Sanskrit scholar from Madras and President , International Association of Sanskrit Studies, who visited the British Museum a couple of years back, has confirmed his having seen the idol in the British Museum. Raghavan has also stated that the idol has an inscription at the base mentioning the date of inscription as 1034 A.D which coincides with the period of Bhojarajas reign. The Goddess is in the Abhanga pose with four hands, partially damaged. She wears a crown; her ear-rings hang down to her shoulders; she wears a pearl necklace; a pearl-embroidered band encircles her breast and her waist is decorated all round. She is in a meditative mood with a serene and lovely face. [The description is from a copy of the photograph with me]. Though it was an established fact that the mosque had come up in the place originally occupied
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by the Saraswathi temple, it was difficult to prove the same with concrete evidence. The reason was that for a thorough study of the structure of the mosque, the permission of the Mosque authorities was necessary which was all along denied. However, after India became independent, the Department of Epigraphy. Government of India, got the permission and a delegation was sent to examine the structure of the mosque. After a thorough study of the structure, it could be established that the iconoclastic Muslim rulers of Malwa in the 15th Century had destroyed the Saraswathi temple and used the same materials to put up the present Kamal Moulvi Mosque. A large portion of the flooring of the mosque prayer hall is paved with black marble slabs which were used to build the temple, but with the face turned inwards. These slabs, when removed and examined, disclosed that they contained some Sanskrit inscriptions which were hidden by their being turned upside down. A curious and unexpected incident revealed as to how the mosque walls were constructed. The walls have been lined with granite slabs. At the junction of two walls, crevices have been left, wide enough to allow a hand to go in. Some visitor to the mosque, out of sheer curiosity put his hand inside the crevice and felt the backside of the lining. He was amazed to discover that they contained some inscriptions. When the matter was further examined after removing a slab from the lining, to the amazement of one and all, it was found that it contained an inscription in the form of a wheel containing Sanskrit shlokas pertaining to grammar. The idea behind the wheel is that the science of language---Grammarmust form part of the temple of Saraswathi, the Goddess of speech. From a close look at the inscriptions on the wheel in the form of Shlokas, one can Sanskrit grammar without much effort. It is because of the fact that the science of language, the grammar, is worthy of worship, that the wheel with the grammar inscriptions was installed in the temple. The Department of Epigraphy has now published the text of the inscription with an English translation. The Mosque was closed for several years and in the year 1940 Muslim devotees were allowed to offer Namaz. In 2003 the Bhojashala Complex was also opened to the Hindus to enable them to offer Pooja. This was done in compliance with the directive of the Archaeological Survey of India [A.S.I.] which directed that that Hindus should be allowed to perform Pooja inside the Complex every Tuesday from dawn to dusk with flowers and rice. Apart from Tuesdays, the Hindus are also allowed Pooja facility on the Basant Panchami Day once in a year. Muslims are allowed to do Namaz every Friday for two hours from 1 P.M to 3 P.M. Tourists are allowed entry into the historic Complex on other days by paying a nominal admission fees. B.M.N.Murthy Source Material: 1. Hindu Dharma by Paramacharya of Kanchi 2. The Vedas by Paramacharya of Kanchi 3. Immortal Bhojas Royal House by Sri. M.K. Ranganathan 4. An Anthology on Aspects of Indian Culture by Dr. V.Raghavan. 5. Cultural History of Ancient India by R.Sathianathaier, Annamalai University.

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ARTICLE NO. 472--MOSQUE INSIDE a SARASWATHI TEMPLE Created: Friday, November 7, 2008 10:38 AM http://murtymandala.blogspot.in/2011/03/saraswathi-temple-makes-way-for-mosque.html On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 9:32 AM, S. Kalyanaraman <kalyan97@gmail.com> wrote: Excerpt from Chandrasekhara Sarasvati, of Kanchi Sankara Mutt's book: Hindu Dharma:(Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) I recently came across another piece of evidence like the Vengi inscription to prove how in the old days our rulers nurtured and propagated the science of grammar. Dhar was a state in the formal Central Provinces(now a part of Madhya Pradesh). It is the same as Dhara which was the capital of Bhojaraja who was a great patron of arts and who made lavish gifts to poets and artists. There is a mosque in the town of Dhar now. Once a cave was discovered in the mosque which on examination revealed some writings in Sanskrit. But the department of epigraphy could not carry out any investigations until some years after freedom. Then, with the permission of the authorities of the mosque, they studied their finding. To their amazement they saw a wheel inside with verses dealing with grammar inscribed on it in the form of a chart. The mosque stands today where a temple to Sarasvati stood during Bhojaraja's time. The idea behind the wheel is that the science of language (grammar)must form part of the temple to Sarasvati, the goddess of speech---and grammar is the Vedapurusa's mouth. They say that grammar could be learnt at a glance from this wheel. It is because the science of language is worthy of worship that the wheel inscribed with grammar was installed in the temple. With the blessings of Vagdevi(Sarasvati) we have obtained the wheel, though long after the mosque was built at that site. The department of epigraphy has published the text of the inscription with an English translation. We learn thus that sastras like grammar were not regarded merely as of worldly interest but in fact considered worthy of worship. That is why rulers promoted them. http://www.kamakoti.org/newlayout/printit.php?content=L2hpbmR1ZGhhcm1hL3BhcnQ3L2NoYXA2Lmh0bQ==&sendpagetitle=Lingui stic+Studies+and+Religion+from+the+Chapter+%26quot%3BVyakarana%26quot%3B%2C+in+ Hindu+Dharma

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Annex A
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/120726592/Sarasvati-pratimaa-and-temple-in-Dhar_-Madhya-Pradesh The pdf document demonstrates that the two statues of Sarasvati NOW in the British Museum belong to the temple in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. British Museum is asked to return the two statues to the temple for worship by devotees.

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