North Indian Inscriptions

INTRODUCTION

  To the discussion, how to arrange the early Brāhmī inscriptions chronologically, an impetus was given at his time by Ramaprasad Chanda in ‘Dates of the Votive Inscriptions on the Stūpas of Sanchi’ ^[1]. Chanda proposed the following order of inscriptions: ^[2]

1. Edicts of Aśoka.
2. Nāgārjuni Hill cave inscriptions of Aśoka’s grandson Daśaratha.
3. Besnagar Garuḍa pillar inscriptions.
4. (a) Inscriptions on the railings of Stūpa I at Sāñchī.
(b) Inscriptions on the railing of Stūpa II at Sāñchī.
(c) Bhārhut railing inscriptions.
(d) Inscriptions on the remnants of the old Bodh-Gayā railing.
5. (a) Besnagar Garuḍa pillar inscription of the year 12 after the inscription of mahārāja Bhāgavata.
(b) Inscription of Nāyanikā, widow of the Andhra king Sātakaṇi I in the Nānāghāt cave.
(c) Bhārhut toraṇa (gateway) inscription.
6. Hāthigumphā inscription of Khāravela, king of Kaliṅga.
7. Sāñchī toraṇa inscriptions.
8. Inscriptions of the time of Śoḍāsa.

   Chanda’s researches form the basis of later inquiries in Bhārhut inscriptions by Barua and Sinha^[3] and by N. G. Majumdar.^[4]

   Barua and Sinha print and discuss three lists of letters : A. gateway inscriptions “engraved………by Western artists whose script was Kharoshṭhī ”, B. coping inscriptions “engraved………by different sculptors apparently of the same period”, and C. rail-pillar, rail-bar, rail-panel and rail-medallion inscriptions, engraved at different times….. by different artists (masons and sculptors) of different localities, where the Brāhmī was or was not the prevalent script”. Obviously list A contains the younger type of letters and B the older, while in C both types are mixed. N. G. Majumdar, inquiring into the chronology of early Brāhmī inscriptions, again distinguishes two layers of Bhārhut inscriptions. In his edition of Sāñchī inscriptions, contributed to the monumental, but somewhat bulky work of Marshall and Foucher on Sāñchī in three volumes, he gives a clear survey of the palaeographical position and a revised, and in our opinion more correct, date for the Bhārhut inscriptions, viz. circa 125-75 B.C. instead of 150-100 B.C. His result with respect to the older Bhārhut inscriptions he states (Vol. I, pp. 270f.), after having fixed the last quarter of the second century B.C. as the date of the railing of Stūpa 2 at Sāñchī, in the following words : “Judging from palaeography, the major portion of the balustrade of the stūpa of Bharhut would also appear to belong to this period”, and again : “The inscriptions of Stūpa 2, together with those on the Bharhut railing and the Bhilsa pillar^[5], represent therefore the concluding phase of group 2 of our table of alphabets^[6] (circa 125-100 B.C.)”.

   The younger inscriptions engraved on a gateway pillar “and some portions of its railing…… which appear to have been later additions” he attributes to a different cate-
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^[1] MASI., I, 1919.
^[2] L.c., pp. 14-15, cf. BI., pp. 108 f.
^[3] BI., pp. 103-112.
^[4] Marshall, Sir John, and Alfred Foucher : The Monuments of Sāñchī. With the texts of inscriptions edited, translated and annotated by N. G. Majumdar, Calcutta : Manager of Publications, 1940, 3 vols.
^[5] Refers to the Besnagar Garuḍa pillar. Dr. D. C. Sircar is of the opinion that the Besnagar epitaph of Heliodorus “cannot be much earlier than the end of the second century B. C.” [This History and Culture of the Indian People, ed. by R. C. Majumbar and A. D. Pusalker, Vol. II (1951), p. 195].
^[6]Monuments of Sāñchī, Vol. III, end.