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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
INTRODUCTION III. DATE AND PALAEOGRAPHY The inscription A 1 on a pillar of the eastern gateway (toraṇa) records that this gateway with its carvings was caused to be made by Dhanabhūti, son of Āgaraju (Aṅgāradyut) and grandson of king Visadeva (Viśvadeva) during the reign of the Sugas (Suṅgas). Moreover, from the inscription A 3, mentioning a gift of prince Vādhapāla (Vyādhapāla), the son of ‘king Dhanabhūti, it results that the donor Dhanabhūti was a king (rājan) like his grand father (and probably also his father[1]). The text of the fragmentary inscription A 2 on a Batanmāra Toraṇa pillar was probably the same as that of A 1, and a third Toraṇa pillar inscription (A 129) of somewhat similar wording is in existence ; but the aksharas hena in line I do not fit in with one of the names in A 1, and it remains very doubtful whether king Dhanabhūti also erected this gateway. Two of the gateways were evidently his donation. King Dhanabhūti, dating his inscriptions in the Śuṅga reign, is supposed by Bühler and others to have been a feudatory of that dynasty[2]. His connection with some donor of the name Dhanabhūti in a Mathurā inscription (List No. 125), maintained by Cunningham[3], is, however, rejected by Lüders in his revision of the Mathurā inscription given below; see supplement to our Bhārhut inscription No. A 1. So the location of king Dhanabhūti’s possessions remains inevident, and the contents of our inscriptions yield no more than a somewhat vague date for the erection of two of the Bhārhut gateways in the Śuṅga reign, i.e. between circa 184 to 72 B.C.
For further elucidation on the chronological position of the Bhārhut inscriptions we have to consider their palaeography. To the experts of old their similarity with the inscriptions of Aśoka from the middle of the 3rd century B.C. was striking. Cunningham says : ‘The alphabetical characters of the inscriptions are precisely the same as those of Aśoka’s time on the Sānchi Stūpa, and of the other undoubted records of Aśoka on rocks and pillars”[4], and elsewhere: “I do not wish to fix upon any exact date, and I am content with recording my opinion that the alphabetical characters of the Bharhut inscriptions are certainly not later than B.C. 200”[5]. Bühler’s book on Indian Palaeography[6] displays great advance in the classification of the oldest Brāhmī inscriptions. He distinguishes an old Maurya type from a younger Maurya and from a Śuṅga type. To the Śuṅga type he attributes the Bhārhut Toraṇa inscriptions, found by him to be apparently younger than the bulk of the rail inscriptions, The latter he considers to represent the old Maurya type. On the whole he gives 150 B. C. as date for Bhārhut in his table.
Some differences even in workmanship between the sculptures of the Toraṇas on the
one hand and of the pillars and bars of the railing (vedikā) on the other hand had already
been observed by Cunningham. According to him the sculptured statues on the balusters of
the eastern gateway were “much superior in artistic design and execution to those of the
railing pillars”. These balusters of the Toraṇa he found further remarkable as having
[1] The donor in the inscription A 4 is Nāgarakhitā (Nāgarakshitā), the wife of a king whose name
with exception of the last akshara ka is lost. Hultzsch was of the opinion that the name should be
reconstructed as Dhanabhūti. This suggestion is tempting, but against the reading of the last akshara. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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