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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
SOCIAL HISTORY demned in two of the Rāshṭrakūṭa records referred to above. It was, however, condemned not because of its being legally inadmissible. We shall now turn to the other aspects of the social life of the Gupta period, and consider, above all, the nature of the ethno-social fabric of this epoch. Years ago we had occasion to observe that there was a racial identity or rather affinity between the Kāyasthas of Bengal and the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas of Bombay Gujarāt.1 We were then engaged upon a study of this Brāhmaṇa community with the help of Valabhī inscriptions and certain Pravarādhyāya texts discovered by the late Vallabhji Haridatta Acharya of Rājkōṭ, the greatest Nāgar Brāhmaṇa archaeologist and historian of the last generation. The texts cite a verse setting forth Śarmans or clan affixes going with the various gōtras of the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas. The verse runs as follows: ..........................Datta-Guptau Nanda-Ghōshau The texts in question are three manuscripts of the work Pravarādhyāya connected with the Nāgars. One of these is dated Saṁvat 1788 Vaiśākha śuda 8 Bhṛigu. And they all distinctly and unmistakably state that the gōtras, pravaras, etc., therein specified are those which were in existence before Saṁvat 1283. The thirteen Śarmans set forth in the verse quoted above must therefore have been in use among the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas up till 700 years ago. Even now they are affixed to their names when they perform the religious ceremonies. Leaving aside the second statement for the time being, let us see whether the first one receives any corroboration from epigraphic sources. We will therefore confine ourselves here to two Śarmans only, namely, Mitra and Trāta. In the Pravarādhyāya, Mitra has been assigned two gōtras, namely, Śārkarāksha and Gāṅgyāyana. The following extracts from the copper-plate inscriptions of the Maitraka princes, all found at Alīnā, are worthy of consideration:
......(1) Ānarttapura-vinirggata-khēṭaka-nivāsi-Śārkkarākshi-sagōtra-bahvṛicha-sabrahmachāri-brāhmaṇ-Āḍhyamitra-putra-brāhmaṇa-Vishṇumitrāya2 The above four plates were all found at Alīnā in the Kaira District of Gujarat State. They
were issued by different Maitraka rulers of Valabhī to Brāhmaṇa grantees who were natives
of Ānandapura or Ānarttapura. Both are names of Vaḍnagar to which pertained a branch of
the Nāgar Brāhmaṇa community called Vaḍnagrā.6 There can thus be no doubt as to the
grantees of these charters having been Nāgar Brāhmaṇas. This is proved further by the fact
that they were all of the Śārkkarākshi gōtra, a gōtra which, the Nāgars maintain, is to be met with
in no other caste than their own.7 Further still, it deserves to be noticed that the names of the
donees and their fathers end in Mitra, so far as the first three inscriptions go. What could be 1 Ind. Ant., Vol. XL, pp. 32 and ff.
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