North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

        (Lines 5-10) When this was the specification of date,¹ (the liṅgas) Upamitēśvara and Kapilēśvara (comprising the portraits of) the teachers were installed in the Teachers’ Shrine. Ārya Uditāchārya, tenth from the Bhagavat Kuśika, fourth from the Bhagavat Parāśara, a stainless disciple’s disciple of the Bhagavat Upamita (and) and a stainless disciple of the Bhagavat
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stand on two feet like a heroic man or like a man of longevity, and because the readers (also) may attain to (their) object.” As Patañjali passes this remark in connection with the first vārttika: siddhē śabdārtha-saṁbandhē and as the word siddha of this vārttika is in the locative, it seems that according to Patañjali this word ending in any termination may be used provided it is placed at the beginning of a work. Such was the magic value of the word siddha. In the ancient period, however, the word that was generally employed was sidhaṁ or siddhaṁ and it was so employed by all Hindus—Buddhists, Jainas and Brahmanists—sometimes along with auspicious sings like the svastikā and others (e.g., in the inscriptions of Junnar caves, ASWI., Vol. IV, Pl. XLVIII and ff.). It is true that the word is thus connected with siddhi in the sense of ‘supernatural power’. It is, however, better to leave it untranslated. At any rate, if it is necessary to translate it, ‘luck’ is the best rendering of it. In later times siddhaṁ was being gradually replaced by siddhiḥ and even by such a personal word as siddhi-dātā as, e.g. in Bengal. The word siddhaṁ has not, however, completely fallen into disuse and is still generally employed at least in Mahārāshṭra.

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¹ The word pūrvā occurs in many inscriptions and appears to have been used in a sense afterwards lost to it. The expression asyāṁ pūrvaāyāṁ or ētasyāṁ pūrvvāyāṁ is met with first in the Kushāṇa, and, afterwards in the Gupta, inscriptions. In the first group of records where it occurs also in various Prakrit forms, the phrase has been translated by Bühler thus: “on this (date specified) as above” (Ep. Ind., Vol. I, pp. 381 ff. and Vol. II, pp. 202 ff.). And he has been followed by Lüders (Int. Ant., Vol. XXXIII, pp. 36 ff.) and Vogel (Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, p. 176). In the case of the Gupta records, Fleet has in every case added the foot note: ‘supply tithau.’ This no doubt seems to receive support from the specification of the date found in some plates of the later Chaulukya kings of Aṇahilapāṭaka, namely, asyāṁ saṁvatsara-māsa-paksha-vāra-pūrvvikāyāṁ tithau with slight variants (see D. R. Bhandarkar’s A List of the Inscriptions of Northern India, Nos. 451, 455, 478; cf. also No. 241). But here the word tithau actually occurs in the text. And, as a matter of fact, what that tithi is has been specified in every one of these Chaulukya records. And it seems not a little suspicious that in all cases where the phrases asyāṁ or ētasyāṁ pūrvvāyāṁ is used, whether in the Kushāṇa or Gupta records, there is not a single instance where the word tithau is employed as in the specification of the date in the Chaulukya grants just referred to. Next, what we have to note is that no tithi has at all been specified in any one of the Kushāṇa epigraphs, and that, on the contrary, there is evidence that the days mentioned there are solar (compare e.g., Nos. 16, 20, 29, 32 and so forth of Lüders’ List of Brāhmī Inscriptions, etc., where the number standing after di or divasa exceeding fifteen which is the maximum number of a paksha). What then becomes of the word pūrvā occurring in the Kushāṇa records? The word tithau cannot possibly be understood after it, because none of them makes mention of any tithi. It is true that in the Gupta inscriptions tithis are mentioned in the specification of dates, but it does not follow that in the expression asyāṁ pūrvvāyāṁ when it occurs in any one of them, we have to understand tithau as Fleet has invariably done. If this view is accepted, how is it possibly to interpret the expression asyān=divasa-pūrvvāyāṁ which is found in line 7 of No. 16 below. We cannot possibly understand tithau after it as Fleet has done in the foot note attached to it. First because no tithi has been actually specified in this record. And secondly because the word divasa here must mean the day intervening between sunrise and sunset, and may sometimes comprise more than one tithi. We have therefore to seek for some other meaning for pūrvā. Let us find out in what other inscriptions the word occurs. Thus, it is found in verse 12 on p. 192 of Ep. Ind., Vol. IX, and, above all, in verse 44 of the celebrated Mandasōr inscription of Kumāragupta I and Bandhuvarman (No. 36 below), where, however, Fleet remarks: “supply praśastiḥ.” This is a curious proposal, because at one time the word tithau and at another the word praśastiḥ is understood by Fleet after pūrvvā. The question arises: why not take pūrvvā as a substantive as seems natural instead of taking it as an adjective? Because it is rather strange that in all these cases which are many, we find that we have to supply either tithau or praśastiḥ after it. That pūrvvā is in such cases used as a substantive may be seen from the following which occurs in CII., Vol., III (1888), No. 36, pp. 158 ff, ēvaṁ rājya-varsha-māsa-dinaiḥ ētasyāṁ pūrvvāyāṁ sva-lakshaṇair=yukta-pūrvvāyāṁ. In this sentence the term pūrvvā has been used, not once, but twice. We are, therefore, compelled to take both these pūrvvās, at least the first of them, as a substantive. And further it seems that the word was used probably in the sense of ‘detailed description or specification’. The phrase may therefore be translated as follows: ‘when, in this manner, with the regnal year, month and day, this was the detailed order (of the date), the detailed order being inverted with its own characteristics”. That pūrvvā had some such meaning appears also from the Nagari inscription (Bhandarkar, List of Northern Inscriptions etc., No. 5), where we meet with asyāṁ Mālava-pūrvvāyāṁ, “when this was the detailed order (of the date) according to the Mālavas”. In all other records, therefore, where asyāṁ or ētasyāṁ pūrvvāyāṁ occurs, we had better, for the same reason, translate it “when this was the detailed order (of the date)”. (For further discussion on pūrvā, see B. Ch. Chhabra, Sarūpa Bhāratī, pp. 108 ff.; and D. C. Sircar, Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, p. 123.—Ed.].