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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS The characters belong to the eastern variety of the Gupta alphabet. By ‘Gupta alphabet’
is meant, of course, the alphabet that was prevalent in Northern India from the beginning of
the fourth to the middle of the sixth century A.D. The test letters of this variety are m, l, s,
sh and h, and are met with in records from Allahābād eastwards including East Bengal, such as
Nos. 8, 17, 22, 24, 26 and so forth. Thus, the curved bottom and the left hook are flattened
into one elongated base of m of this eastern variety. Similarly, the left limb of l undergoes a
change, and is turned sharply down. The letter s has a loop at the end of its left vertical line,
instead of the usual curve or hook. The left limb of sh consists of a loop attached to the slanting
central bar. About the letter h, Bühler says “The base stroke of ha is suppressed, and its hook
is attached to the vertical and turned sharply to the left.”1 These test letters of the eastern
variety are of an entirely different nature from those found in Central India in such inscriptions as Nos. 2, 8, 11 and so on. As regards those found in the western part of the U.P., we
notice a variable admixture of both, in such records as Nos. 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17 and so forth.
It is, however, a mistake to suppose that this eastern variety originated in Eastern India. As
was pointed out by us elsewhere,2 an inscription has been discovered at Mathurā3 dated
in the 14th year of Kanishka’s reign, which contains the typically eastern Gupta forms of the
three letter m, s and h. It is possible to maintain that Kanishka of this record is Kanishka of
the later Great Kushāṇa, or the Kushāṇaputra dynasty, who, most probably, originated the
Kalachuri era. In that case, the date of the inscription becomes equivalent to 263 A.D. This
brings the record sufficiently close to the time of the rise of the Gupta power. Again, we know
of an inscription found at Gaḍhā (Jasdan) in Kathiawar of the time of the Mahākshatrapa Rudrasēna. It is dated 127 (or 126), and, as it is to be referred to the Śaka era, we obtain
205 A.D. (or 204 A.D.) as its equivalent in the Christian era. If we carefully examine the
facsimile of this record published in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XVI, (plate facing page 237),
we find that the letters m and h are incised sometimes in the Eastern Indian, and sometimes
in the Central Indian, variety of the Gupta alphabet. It is thus clear that these eastern forms
of the letters were in existence as early as 205 A.D.,4 the date of the Jasdan inscription, that
is, certainly more than a century prior to the rise of the Gupta power. It would be the height
of absurdity to call them Gupta characters at all, and, above all, to style them as the eastern
variety of the Gupta alphabet, when the Jasdan record is not only of the pre-Gupta period
but is far removed to the south-west of Pāṭaliputra. Nevertheless, it cannot possibly be
gainsaid that when the Gupta sovereignty was established, the five characters referred to
above, namely, m, l, s, sh and h, became somehow the test letters of the alphabet prevalent
in Eastern India and differentiated it from that of Central India, whereas in the western part
of U.P. was perceptible a varying intermixture of both the varieties so far as these five
characters are concerned. We can therefore safely assert that the characters of this inscription
represent the eastern variety of the Gupta alphabet.
There are other palaeographic characteristics which are peculiar to this inscription. Thus,
there are two letters, which, after the cave inscriptions period, lay for a long time in disuse 1 Indian Palaeography, 1959, p. 65.
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