The inscription, brought to light by a visiting septuagenarian Japanese scholar Prof Kozo Nakada, is currently being transcribed to get detailed information on the many aspects of the fire, which also finds mention in ancient Indian epics, Indian museum director Shyamalkanti Chakravarti told PTI.

The inscription was lying neglected in hoards of unused trivia inside the dilapidated godown, being refurbished by the museum in phases, when Nakada spotted it and confirmed that the contents could be of great historical importance.

Carved on a rectangular six inches long and three inches broad stone, the inscription, written in Sanskrit and old Javanese language, is surmounted on a lotus pedestal.

"The fire, which finds reference in our ancient texts as comparable to the one that wipedoff the historic Indian state of Puruhuto, has went largely unreported in Indonesian texts and this inscription will certainly provide genuine clues about it," Chakravarti said.

The Indian Museum records say the inscription was unearthed at Surabaya in Indonesia and later brought by an English scholar Atamford Raffles in the last century.

Nakada, a former professor of Japan's Kagoshima University, while searching materials for a comprehensive inventory of dated inscriptions in Java, struck upon the epigraphic record mentioning Saka year 963 (corresponding to 1041 AD), and took back with him its photo replica for full transcription.

Nakada said in a lecture on `The dated inscriptions in Java' that during his hunt in the Indian museum's reserve storage area, he had rediscovered another Javanese inscription, almost after a century of its disappearance.

Both the inscriptions, he said, would further enrich data on Javanese history.