North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

in the plate for a ring with a seal on it; nor are there any indications of a seal having been soldered on to it, as, from the instance of the spurious Gaya plate of Samudragupta, No. 4 above, Plate IV; illustrated also, by the Aśīrgaḍh seal of Śarvavarman, CII., Vol. III, 1888, No. 47, Plate XXX A, and the Sōnpat seal of Harshavardhana, ibid., No. 52, Plate XXXII B, and, elsewhere, by the Dighwā-Dubaulī plate of the Mahārāja Mahēndrapāla¹ and the Bengal Asiatic Society’s plate of the Mahārāja Vināyakapāla,²-seems to have been the early custom in the north of India. The weight of the plate is 1 lb. 2 oz. The average size of the letters is between 1/8’’ and 3/61’’. The characters, on the whole, belong to the western variety of the Gupta, i.e., northern class of alphabets, the test letters m alone being of the eastern type. The initial i has an entirely different form from that of the other northern type; contrast it in Indrapura and itō, line 8, with iva in Plate I, page 215 above, line 30, and iti in plate IX, p. 250, line 7. In line 10, we have a form of the numerical symbol for 2. The language is Sanskrit; and all the formal part of the inscription, from Paramabhaṭṭāka, line 3, to samakālīyam line 10, is in prose. From a linguistic point of view, we have to notice the affix ka, in=Endrāpuraka-, line 5, Indrāpuraka,3 line 6, and especially pratishṭhāpitaka-, line 7. Other instances of it are given by No. 26, CII., Vol. III, 1888, plate XVI line 10, utpādyamānaka; No. 27, ibid., Plate XVII, line 9, Pratishṭhāpitaka, and line 12 , upadyamānaka; No. 28, ibid., Plate XVIII, lines 13 and 14, anumōditaka, line 14, uparilikhitaka, and lines 14 and 15 and lines 18 and 19 utpadyamānaka; No. 29, ibid., Plate XIX A, line 11, uparilikhtaka, and line 15, utpadyamānaka; No. 31, ibid., Plate XX, line 9, utpannaka, lines 9 and 16, utpadyamānaka, and line 11, kāritaka; No. 41, ibid., Plate XXVII, lines 11 and 12, atisṛishṭaka. In respect of orthography, we have to notice (1) the use of the guttural nasal, instead of the anusvāra, before ś and h, in chatvāriṅśad, lines 3-4., and siṅha, line 6; (2) the doubling of k, and usually of t, in conjunction with a following r, e.g., in apakkramaṇa, lines 8-9., and pauttraḥ, line 5, but not in putrō in the same line); and (3) the doubling of v after the anusvāra, in saṁvvatsara, line 3.

       The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Imperial Gupta king Skandagupta, whose officer, the Vishaya-pati⁴ Śarvanāga, was administering Antarvēdi, which, according to Fleet, denotes the country lying between the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā. But this does not seem likely, because this whole prvince would rightly be a bhukti, ‘province’, and would be too big to be a vishaya, ‘district,’ of which Śarvanāga could be Vishaya-pati. It probably denotes some doab touching the Gaṅgā which was no far removed from Indrapura and of which it could be the headquarters.⁵ It is dated in words, in the year one hundred and forty-six (464-65 A.D.); and in the month Phālguna (February-March), but without any specification
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¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. XV, pp. 105 ff.
² Ibid., pp. 138 ff.
³ As regards these two words, Monier-Williams, in his Sanskrit-English Dictionary, gives puraka as another form of pura, ‘city’; but refers only to ‘Arghāshṭapuraka’ as an authority for the word. This city, however, as Fleet points out, only owes its existence to one of the early misreadings of Maṇṭarāja-Paishṭapuraka in line 19 of the Allahābād inscription, No. 1 above.
⁴ Vishaya-pati is a technical official title, meaning ‘the lord, or ruler, of a vishaya.’
⁵ According to the Abhidhānachintāmaṇi: Gaṅgā-Yamunayōr=madhyam=Antarvēdiḥ Samasthalī-(Bhūmikāṇḍa, 27). This shows that the tract of the land intervening between the Gaṅgā and Yamunā was called Antarvēdi or Antarvēdī and also known as Samasthalī. See also the Trikāṇḍaśēsha, 2.1.7. The inhabitants of this land were for that reason called Antarvēdis (Rāmāyaṅa, IV. 41. 14). Antarvēdī as the name of this country has been referred to also in the Antargharāghava (Kāvyamālā ed.), p. 311. It will thus be seen that Antarvēdī here denotes a country or dēśa which is more extensive than a bhukti and is certainly far more extensive than a vishaya. But there is also a smaller division of this Antarvēdī which is popularly styled Antarabēda and which denotes the region of Kanauj lying between the Gaṇgā and the Yamunā, commonly called the Doāb (Bate’s Dictionary of the Hindi Language, sub voce). This probably represents the Antarvēdi vishaya of the Indōr plate.