THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS
where numerous Kushāṇa epigraphs have been unearthed. How far this formulary was peculiar
to Mathurā we do not know; for, in the second Mathurā inscription of this king, neither his
name nor his titles have been preserved.
The date of the inscription is 61, which, of course, has to be referred to the Gupta era.
It is rather unfortunate that the important words in line 3-5 which contain the details of
the date have been effaced. The first part of it tells us to what regnal year of Chandragupta
this date corresponds. It is a serious loss that this part has not been preserved. The second part
tells us to what kāla or era the year 61 belonged. It is all but certain that Gupta-kāla was engraved. But nothing would have been better if the word Gupta had been preserved beyond
all doubt.1 Then again, the name of the month also has been destroyed. Fortunately for us, the
word prathamē has been preserved immediately after the specification of the month. This shows
that in the year 61 there was an intercalary month. On the evidence of Jaina works the late
K. B. Pathak has proved that expired or current Gupta years can be converted into corresponding (expired or current) Śaka years by adding 241.2 Thus, if we add 241 to 61 of Gupta
year of our inscription, we obtain 302 Śaka=380 A.D. We do not yet know whether this Gupta
year is current or expired. We leave it undecided for the time being. Now, if we refer to page
42 of Table X of the Indian Chronology by Swamikannu Pillai, we find that there was an additional month only in A.D. 380, and none in 378 or in 381-82, and that in A.D. 380 Āshāḍha
was the intercalary month. The lacuna before prathamē can thus be easily filled up with Āshāḍha-māsē, We thus find that the month of our date must be Āshāḍha. We also find that the date
of our record was a current Gupta year. Because the intercalary month came only in A.D. 380
current, the Gupta year 61 must therefore be also a current year. The earliest date we had for
Chandragupta II before the discovery of this record was Gupta year 82, supplied by an Udayagiri cave inscription of his feudatory chieftain of the Sankānīka family (No. 7 below). But
the date furnished by our epigraph is 61, which is thus twenty-one years earlier. It also
sheds some light on the length of his reign. The latest known date for this Gupta sovereign is
93 (No. 9 below). Therefore, Chandragupta II must have had a reign of at least 32 years.
After the specification of the date, the inscription introduces us to a teacher who was a
Māhēśvara or devotee of Śiva and was called Uditāchārya. His pedigree is given. But unfortunately the name of his teacher is not clearly preserved. It is, however, pretty certain that it was
Upamita. The latter, again, was a pupil of Kapila, and Kapila, a pupil of Parāśara. We have
thus a list of Māhēśvara teachers extending over four generations. In fact, Uditāchārya has
been mentioned as chaturtha or fourth in succession from Parāśara. This is intelligible and quite
all right, as it is in an unbroken order. But Uditāchārya has been also specifically mentioned
as daśama or tenth in descent from Kuśika. As no names of the intervening teachers have been
given and Uditāchārya is specified as tenth in succession from Kuśika, the only possible inference is that Kuśika, though he did not originate any new doctrine or sect, must have been
at least the founder of a line of teachers. We have already dealt with this point elsewhere,3 but
what we have to note here is that while the living teacher Uditāchārya is called merely an Ārya, all the others, namely, Upamita, Kapila, Parāśara and Kuśika, have received the supreme designation of Bhagavat, which is generally associated with personages who are supposed
to have attained to the rank of divinity.
The object of the inscription is to record that Uditāchārya, who was the Māhēśvara teacher
living, established two images, called Kapilēśvara and Upamitēśvara in the Guru-āyatana. The
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1 [For other views about the restoration of this lost portion, see Sel. Ins., 1965, p. 277 and Journal of Ancient
Indian History , Vol. III, 1970, pp,. 113-17–Ed.].
2 Ind. Ant. Vol. XLVI, p. 293.
3 See above, Introduction, pp. 133-35.
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