North Indian Inscriptions

PART A

(c) TEXT-TRANSLATION- NOTES : A 1-136

1. A 1 – 4 DONATIONS BY MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY^[1]
A 1 (687) ; PLATE I

  ON a pillar of the eastern gateway, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Edited by Cunningham, with remarks by Rajendralala Mitra, and Bühler, StBh. (1879), p. 128 f. No. 1, and Pl. XII and LIII ; Rajendralala Mitra, PASB. 1880, p. 58 ff.; Hultzsch, IA., Vol. XIV (1885), p. 138 f., and Pl.; ɀDMG., Vol. XL (1886), p. 60, No. 1 ; IA., Vol. XXI (1892), p. 227, No. 1 ; Ramaprasad Chandra, MASI., No. 1 (1919), p. 21, No. 20, and Pl. V ; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. If., No. 1. Bühler, ASWI. (1883), Vol. V, p. 73.

TEXT :

1 Suganaṁ raje raño Gāgīputasa Visadevasa
2 pauteṇa^[2] Gotiputasa Āgarajusa puteṇa
3 Vāchhiputena Dhanabhūtina kāritaṁ toranāṁ^[3]
4 silākaṁmaṁto cha upaṁno^[4]

TRANSLATION :

   During the reign of the Sugas (Śuṅgas)^[5] the gateway was caused to be made and the stone-work (i.e. carving) presented by Dhanabhūti,^[6] the son of a Vāchhī (Vātsī),^[7] son of Āgaraju (Aṅgāradyut),^[8] the son of a Gotī (Gauptī)^[9] and grandson of king Visadeva (Viśvadeva),^[9] the son of Gāgī (Gārgi).^[7]

   That the Śuṅgas are meant by the Sugas was first recognised by Bühler. Raje was translated by Rajendralala Mitra ‘in the kingdom’, by Barua-Sinha ‘within the dominion’, ^[10] but the term rājyasaṁvatsare in No. 22 and 33, rajyasaṁ in No. 51 of my List is in favour of the meaning ‘during the reign’ assigned to the word by Hultzsch. Silākaṁmaṁto was first correctly explained by Rajendralala Mitra; it refers no doubt to the sculptures on the gateway. Bühler was the first to derive upaṁno from Sk. utpannaḥ, but his translation was wrong. Hultzsch rendered ‘silākaṁmaṁto cha upaṁno’ at first ‘and the masonry was finished’ and later on “and the stone-work arose’.

   Barua-Sinha take upaṁno in the sense of the causative and translate ‘and the workmanship
______________________________

^[1] Another donation by a member of the royal family is probably to be found in the fragmentary donative inscription No. A 130.
^[2] This word has been read by all editors as pauteṇa. But as the diphthong au never occurs in the Bhārhut inscriptions and as it is linguistically untenable we suggest to read poteṇa, the more as the middle horizontal mark to the left, which is supposed to give the mātrā for au, is very slight and hence it is very likely that it is just an accidental prolongation of the middle horizontal mark to the right. On somewhat similar ground Lüders himself reads dānaṁ instead of donaṃ in A 64.
^[3] Read toraṇaṁ. The engraver has forgotten to incise the left upper bar of ṇa.
^[4] The last akshara looks like ṇa, but there can be little doubt that it is to be read no, the right portion of the o-sign being attached to the top of the na and not as usually to the middle of the letter.
^[5] The name appears in the classification given above II, 4 a (names derived from plants). Śuṅga is a name for the Indian fig tree (=vaṭa).
^[6] See classification II, 3, a (names derived from wealth, fame, and birth).
^[7] Regarding gotra-names cf. p.2.
^[8] See classification 1, 2, B, a (names derived from planets). Hultzsch, IA., Vol. XXI (1892), p. 227, note 11: “As suggested by Dr. Bühler, this name has to be explained by Aṅgāra[ka] iva dyotate ity Aṅgāra- dyut, ‘shining like (the planet) Mars’.”
^[9] See classification 1, 3, a (names referring to vedic deities).
^[10] Barua, temporarily having changed his opinion, translates ‘during the reign of the Śuṅgas’ in Barh. I, p. 29, but ‘within the dominion of the Śuṅgas’ again ibid., p. 41.