North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

       (Verse 2) His son was the illustrious Goparaja, renowned for manliness; the daughter’s son of the Sarabha king;¹ who became the ornament of (his) family.

       (Verses 3-4) (There is) the glorious Bhanugupta, a distinguished hero on earth, a mighty ruler, brave being equal to Partha. And along with him Goparaja, following (him) without fear, having overtaken the Maittras and having fought a very big and famous battle, went to heaven, becoming equal to Indra, the best of the gods; and (his) devoted, attached, beloved, and beauteous wife, clinging (to him), entered into the mass of fire (funeral pyre).

No. 44 : PLATE XLIV

NĀLANDĀ CLAY SEALS OF NARASIṀHAGUPTA

       Two seals, each bearing an identical inscription of Narasīṁhagupta, were excavated, like those of Budhagupta, Vainyagupta and Kumāragupta III from Monastery site No. 1 at Nālandā, Patna District, Bihar. A brief reference to their discovery was made by Hirananda Sastri in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXI, p. 77, postscript.² These seals also were originally clay impressions which were eventually burnt into terracotta in the circumstances mentioned below on page 355. The one marked A is comparatively better preserved than that marked B. Both, however, are fragmentary, the proper right half in each case being broken off. Seal B has further lost the upper portion of its proper left surface amounting to one third of the original length. Seal A also has sustained additional damage at the top as well as at the bottom of its proper left side. The extreme measurements of the extant faragments are 3½" long by 2¾" broad in the case of A and 31/4" long by 2" broad in the case of B. That there is a strong family likeness between these and the other Gupta seals from Nālandā is shown by their oval shape; the decoration of the border line : the figure of the Garuḍa facing, with outstretched wings, and standing on a base composed of two parallel lines; and the prose inscription in eight lines below, done in relief. The legend is fuller and better preserved in A than in B, the letters in the former being much neater and better executed. The latter, however, which is evidently an impression of an independent, rather crude, original, seems to have been executed by a shaking unsteady hand as is clear from its awfully blurred letters, sloping from right to left. The characters are closely akin to those of the seals of Kumāragupta III discussed below. The only peculiarity is the novel way in which the medial u is indicated in gu, as e.g. in Purugupta, line 6, where it resembles the medial ṛ of pṛithivyām in line 1 of the seals of Kumāragupta III. The language is Sanskrit. In respect of orthography we have to notice the doubling of t in conjunction with the following r as in prapauttra-, line 1, -dauhittra-, line 2, and -puttra-, lines 2 and 5; the change of ending anusvāra to ṅ and n in conjunction respectively with a following k and d as in Mahādēvyāṅ=Kumāra- dēvyām=, line 2 and Mahādēvyān=Dattadēvyām=, line 3; the use of the upadhmānīya in [h]=Paramabhāgavatō, line 4; and the grammatically incorrect change of anusvāra into ṅ with a h following as in Narasiṅhaguptaḥ, line 8.

       The seals refer themselves to the reign of Narasiṁhagupta who is called a Paramabhāga-vata Mahārājādhirāja. The legend is genealogical and is identical with that of the seals of Kumāragupta III as far as the mention of Narasiṁhagupta.
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¹ It is not improbable that this king, called Śarabha, was the founder of Śarabhapura from which were issued four plates—one by Mahājayarāja and three by Mahāsudēvarāja (D. R. Bhandarkar, A List of the Inscriptions of Northern India, Nos. 1878-1881).
² [They were subsequently published by Hirananda Sastri in his Nalanda and its Epigraphic Material, MASI., No. 66, page 65 and plate VIII, b, c.—Ed.].