North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

as self-surrender, offering (their own) daughters in marriage and a request for the administration of their own districts and provinces through the Garuḍa badge,¹ by the Dēvaputra-Shāhi-Shāhānushāhi and the Śaka lords² and by (rulers) occupying all Island countries, such as Siṁhala and others.

       (Line 24-26) He was without an antagonist on earth;³ he, by the overflowing of the multitude of (his) many good qualities adorned by hundreds of good actions, has wiped off the fame of other kings with the soles of (his) feet; (he is) Purusha (Supreme Being), being the cause of the prosperity of the good and the destruction of the bad⁴ (he is) incomprehensible;⁵ (he is) one whose tender heart can be captured only by devotion and humility; (he is) possessed of compassion; (he is) the giver of many hundred-thousands of cows; (his) mind has received ceremonial initiation for the uplift of the miserable, the poor, the forlorn and the suffering; (he is) resplendent and embodied kindness of mankind; (he is) equal to (the gods) Kubēra, Varuṇa, Indra and Yama; (his) Āyukta officers are always engaged upon restoring wealth (titles, territories, etc.) to the many kings conquered by the might of his arms.

        (Lines 27-28) (He) has put to shame Bṛihaspati⁶ by (his) sharp and polished intellect, as also Tumburu, Nārada and others by the graces of his musical performances;⁷ (his) title of ‘King of poets’⁸ has been established through (his) many composition in poetry which were a means of subsistence to the learned people;⁹ (his) many wonderful; and noble deeds are fit to be praised for a very long time; (he is) a human being, only as far as he performs the rites and conventions of the world, (otherwise he is ) God whose residence is (this) world.

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       (Line 28-30) This lofty¹⁰ column, (is) the raised arm of the earth, proclaiming as it were,
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as the flow of water. The unimpeded flow of water is sure to cause devastations unless it is checked by a dharaṇi-bandha, i.e. an earthen embankment. So what a dharaṇi-bandha is to an unimpeded flow of water, the various forms of service rendered by the foreign monarchs were to the unimpeded flow of Samudragupta’s prowess.
¹ Fleet’s rendering of this passage is: “offering themselves as sacrifices, bringing presents of maidens, (giving) Garuḍa-tokens, (surrendering) the enjoyment of their own territories, soliciting (his) commands, etc., (rendered) by . . . . . . . . . “ Bühler’s translation is: “causing themselves to be presented to him, offering daughters and other presents, and requesting him for a decree with the Garuḍa seal for the possession of their country” (Ind. Ant., Vol. XLII, p. 178). For a full explanation of the different parts of this passage, see above Introduction, pp. 26-30. [The words garutmadaṅka, śāsana, vishaya and bhukti in the original seems to be technical terms, the first two standing, for ‘Garuḍa Seal’ and ‘copper charter’ respectively and the latter two for territorial units ‘district’ and ‘division’ respectively. See the article on Seals of Ancient India in The Indian Archives, Vol. XIV, p. 41.—Ed.].
² Who these foreign contemporary monarchs were has been discussed above, see Introduction, pp. 26-30.
³ [Or, say Apratiratha, God Vishṇu Himself, on earth. JNSI., Vol. IX, pp. 137 ff,; Nāgarī Prachāriṇī Patrikā (N.S.), Year 54, (Saṁvat 2006), pp. 1 ff,—Ed.].
⁴ [Another significant allusion to Samudragupta being God Vishṇu on earth: paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya cha dushkṛitām (Bhagavadgītā, Chapter IV, verse 8). For an elaborate discussion see Nāgarī Prachārṇī Patrikā, op. cit.—Ed.].
⁵ [Allusion is again to Samudragupta being an incarnation of Achintya, God Vishṇu. Ibid.—Ed.].
⁶ See above, Introduction, pp. 43-5.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ [This rendering has been objected to by Prof. Jagan Nath Agrawal who would translate as—which were ‘fit to serve as the sources of inspiration for the learned.’ See the Bhāratīyā Vidyā, Vol. IX (The Munshi Diamond Jubilee Commemoration Volume), Part I, p. 277. This accords well. We may thus take the word upajīvya of the original as standing for ‘model’.—Ed.]
¹⁰ It is possible to propose an alternative translation which will be something like this - “This column has been erected as an arm of the earth” etc. But this presupposes that the pillar had fallen and was set up again in the time of Samudragupta. Here is what Prinsep thinks: ‘That it was overthrown, some time after its first erection...... by order of the great Asoka in the third century before Christ, is proved by the longitudinal or random insertion of several names...............in a character intermediate between” those of the Aśōka and the Gupta inscriptions.
.......................................................................................................................(contd. on p. 219)