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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS as Mr. Ghosh has correctly remarked. Nevertheless, like Fleet he takes a firm stand on the fact that like the Gayā Plate “it has the same ungrammatical construction of the genealogical portion ( . . uchchhēttuḥ . . . . apratirathasya . . prapauttrasya . . . . puttrasya . . . . dauhtitrasya . . . . utpannaḥ Samudraguptaḥ.) If the plate be regarded as genuine, it is puzzling why the secretariate of Samudragupta should have committed such a silly error in giving the genealogy of its master. I find it difficult to explain away this error as accidental and am, on the whole, inclined to think that the genuineness of the present plate is not above suspicion”.1 Not long ago this matter attracted the attention of a ‘tyro’ like (Miss) Sakuntala Rao Sastri,–especially the silly error of Samudragupta’s secretariate which puzzled Mr. Ghosh. “These puzzles, however,” she rightly says, “are furnished by not a few copper-plate grants which have been taken as genuine. Thus to take a fresh instance, the Bāsim Plates of Vākāṭaka Viindhyaśakti have . . Chaturaśvamēdha-yājinas=samrāja [ḥ*] Vṛishṇivṛiddha-sagōtrasya . . . . śrī-Pravarasēna-pautrasya . . . . śrī-Vindhyaśaktēr.”2 This inscription has been edited by both Dr. D. C. Sircar3 and Prof. Mirashi4 who have freely corrected śrī-Pravarasēna–pautrasya into śrī-Pravarasēnasya pautrasya and śrī-Sarvvasēna-putrasya into śrī-Sarvvasēnasya putrasya. How was then this ungrammatical construction in the genealogical description of Vindhyaśakti tolerated in the secretariate of this ruler? Did it not, as a matter of fact, mislead Mr. Y.K.Deshpande and Dr. D. B. Mahajan who originally edited the record?5 Do they not describe Vindhyaśakti as “a samrāṭ who performed four Aśvamēdhas” and the other sacrifices and his grandfather “merely as Śrī Pravarasēna without any kingly epithet”? Can error further go? Nevertheless, this silly error was caused in the composition of the genealogy of Vindhyaśakti for which the secretariate of the master was solely responsible. And what is the most silly error is that gōtra of the master’s family given in the Bāsim Plates is Vṛishṇivṛiddha, and not Vishṇuvṛiddha which is invariably given in the other Vākāṭaka grants and which is the correct form of the gōtra given in the standard works on Gōtras and Pravaras. Is any sane scholar therefore prepared to consider the Bāsim grant as a spurious record like the Nālandā and Gayā Plates?
A similar slip to that pointed out by Fleet in the description of genealogy but opposite in
character is supplied by the Vakkalēri Plates of the Chālukya Kīrtivarman II in lines 8-11,
which run as follows: Śrī-Kīrttivarma-pṛithivīvallabhamahārājas=tasy=ātmajas=samarasaṁsakta-
sakalōttarāpathēśvara-śrī-Harshavarddhana-parājay-ōpātta-paramēśvaraśabdas=tasya Satyāśraya-śrī-prithivīvallabha-mahārājādhirāja-paramēśvarasya priya-tanayasya.6 As has been shown by F. Kielhorn,
the above draft should be corrected into Kīrttivarmma . . . . . . . . . . . –mahārāj-ātmajasya . . . . . . . .
Harshavarddhana-parājay-ōpātta-paramēśvaraśabdasya Satyāśraya- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-paramēśvarasya, etc. There are thus two slips here in the genealogical portion set forth. But the
first of these slips occurs in two other Chalukyan Plates, both found at Nērūr.7 The truth of
the matter is that when there are many long compounds in the genealogical portions of a grant,
there is every likelihood of a jumble being created by some of these compounds ending in the
genitive case and some in the nominative case when all should have been in one and the same
case. And it is but natural that the same jumble should appear in both the grants as the draft
was composed in one and the same office, namely, that of the Akshapaṭalādhikṛita Gōpasvāmin.
There is thus no definite evidence to show that the Nālandā grant is a spurious record.
1 Ep. Ind., p. 51.
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