49 - I
The first of the four inscriptions refered to above contains traces only of two lines of writing. But the upper, left and right sides of the record are broken away and lost. The first line contains the aksharas [ma]дa bha[дana]. There seems to be a reference here to Paramaдa-bhaдa (Sanskrit Peramaдi-bhaтa) occuring in Inscription No. 2 discussed below and meaning a soldier [fighting under the leadership] of Peramaдi'. The second and last of the lines ends in the expression [chhа]yaм(yа)-thaмbho with which the epigraph also ends. There is no doubt that the inscription was meant to record the installation of a chhаyа-stambha, i.e. '[memorial] pillar bearing the image (chhаyа) [of the person in whose memory it was raised],' probably of certain soldiers (bhaдana= Sanskrit bhaтаnам) who belonged to a contingent led by a commander named Peramaдi and lost their lives in a battle. The composition of the record reminds us of that of Inscription No. 2 while another Nаgаrjunikoндa inscription likewise ends with a reference to a chhаyа-stambha. [Ibid., Vol. XXXIV, p. 28; for a number of records of this type, see below, Vol. XXXV, pp. 13-17.]