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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
POLITICAL HISTORY not enough, because Vishṇu is renowned for his three strides, of which one only was in the antariksha. Why did not the other two places which represented the remaining two strides of Vishṇu come to be called Vishṇupada, especially the one on the plains (pṛithivī) ? The truth of the matter is that since only one Vishṇupada must already have been known as a sacred place, that being situated on a stupendously lofty eminence, it was considered to be midway between earth and heaven, that is, in the firmament, and that consequently Vishṇupada came to be used as a term denoting ‘the sky, firmament’ itself before the time of Amara, that is, before the fifth century A.D. If this is the case, it is quite intelligible why Chandra (that is, Chandragupta II) should be described as having quitted one gō, that is, the earth, and as having been settled on another gō, that is, the mid-region, because, as just pointed out, Vishṇupada where the column was at first standing was perched on such a high eminence that Vishṇupada not only was considered to be existing in antariksha but became itself a term synonymous with antariksha.
The last question that we have now to consider is the exact location of Vishṇupada
which is mentioned in stanza 3 as the place where the iron pillar was originally planted.
We have just seen that there is nothing in stanza 2 which shows that Chandra was dead when
the eulogy was engraved on the pillar. On the contrary, the word mūrttyā, occurring in it,
clearly shows that he was alive at that time, because he could not, by any stretch of imagination, be supposed to have gone to the other world in his bodily form. We have therefore to
take it not only that he was living but also that he was then staying at Vishṇupada. Here
two questions arise: (1) Where precisely was this Vishṇupada, and (2) why was Chandra
staying there? In regard to the first point, Fleet raises the query ‘whether it should be identified
with the part of the Delhi Ridge on which the column stands.’1 But he is undecided, because,
says he, on the one hand, that ‘the actual position of the column is in a slight depression,
with rising ground on both sides, a position which hardly answers to the description of its
being on a giri or ‘hill’. This agrees with the tradition, he argues further, that ‘the column
was erected, in the early part of the eighth century A.D., by Anaṅgapāla, the founder of the
Tōmara dynasty,’2 and raises the surmise that like the Aśōka stone columns at Delhi and
Allahabad, the iron pillar also brought from elsewhere to the spot where it is now standing.
On the other hand, he says that “the fact that the underground supports of the column include
several small pieces of metal ‘like bits of bar iron’3 is in favour of its being now in its original
position; as they would probably have been overlooked, and left behind, in the process of a
transfer.” But “no violence of language,” remarks V. A. Smith, “could possibly justify the
application of the term ‘hill’ to the present site of the monument.”4 And, in his opinion, it is
extremely probable that the iron pillar was originally erected at Mathurā, at the Katra mound,
where the magnificent temple of Kēśava once stood, and which may very probably prove to
be Vishṇupada-giri mentioned in the inscription. But the Katra mound also, which, according
to Smith, was the original site of the monument, cannot possibly, by any stretch of language
be described as a giri. Long ago we noted that the Petersburg Lexicon gave many references to
Vishṇupada contained in the epics and the Purāṇas. We drew the attention of Chintaharan
Chakravarty to it, who, thereupon wrote a learned paper entitled “The Original Site of the
Meherauli Pillar.”5 But he was not able to indentify the spot accurately. This was, however,
done by J. C. Ghosh with practically the same materials.6 The most important of these is a 1 CII., Vol. III, 1888, pp. 140 ff.
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