North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

in the southern alphabets, and were not revived for a considerable time after the present period; namely, the ḍ, as distinct from ḷ, exhibited in krīḍatā, line 14, Ḍavāka, line 22, and vrīḍita line 27 ; and the lingual ḍh, exhibited in virūḍha, line 18. On the other hand, in the ḷ which occurs in vyāluḷita, line 8, Kaurāḷaka, line 19, Saṁhaḷaka, line 23, and laḷita, lines 27 and 30, they include a letter which properly belongs exclusively to the southern alphabets and languages; and its occurrence here seems to furnish an unconscious piece of evidence to the effect that the conquests attributed to Samudragupta in the south of India were actual facts. In śōbhā, line 18, Vishṇugōpa, line 19, and gō-śata, line 25, the vowel ō is formed in a rather peculiar way, which, so far as the right-hand stroke is concerned, is followed also in the vowel ā as attached to the same consonants, e.g., in śāsana, lines 23 and 24, and Gāṅgaṁ, line 31. In respect of r in combination with a following y, we have to notice that, as in the case of other consonants, the y is doubled and the r is written above the line, e.g., in vīryya, line 13; whereas, in a somewhat later development of this alphabet in Central India, it became the custom, as in the case of y in conjunction with the other letters, to write the r on the line, with a single y attached below it, e.g., in maryādayā, lines 6-7, and kuryāt, line 12, of the Majhgawam plates of the Mahārāja Hastin.¹ The characters also include, in the numbering of the verses, forms of the numerical symbols for 3, 4, and 8 only in the preserved portion of the inscription. It must have contained forms of the numerals 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9, as well, which are lost to us.

       The language is Sanskrit ; and the inscription is in verse as far as the end of line 16, and the rest is in prose, except that in lines 30 and 31 there is one more verse thrown in. In respect of orthography, the only points that call for notice are (1) the doubling of k, in conjunction with a following r, e.g., in parākkrama, line 17, kkriyā, lines 27 and 28, and vikkrama, line 30; (2) the doubling of the consonant following r, as in ta[ttvā]rttha-bharttuḥ, line 5, kīrtti-, line 6, utkarṇṇitai, line 7, and so forth; (3) the doubling of dh (by d as required by the rules) in conjunction with a following y and v, in addhyēya, line 16, and sāddhv-asādhu, line 25; and (4) the use of the southern ḷ, in the instances pointed out above.

       The inscription is non-sectarian, being devoted entirely to a recital of the glory, conquests, and descent of the Imperial Gupta king Samudragupta. It is not dated. Its great value lies in the abundant information which, in the conquests attributed to Samudragupta, it gives us as to the divisions of India, its tribes, and its kings, about the middle of the fourth century A.D. This, however, has received a detailed treatment in the historical chapters which form part of the Introduction to this volume. Fleet thinks that this record describes Samudragupta as deceased and that it must, therefore, belong to the time of his son and successor Chandragupta II and must have been engraved soon after the accession of the latter. He has gone even to the length of calling it “Allahabad Posthumous Stone Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta.” This view, however, is based on an erroneous interpretation of a passage in lines 29-30 as was pointed out soon after (1890) by no less a scholar than Bühler in his Die Indischen Inschriften und das Alter der Indischen Kunstpoesie, p. 32 ff. It has again been discussed and controverted in the Introduction to this volume. This record is of extreme importance for the history of Kāvya literature also, to which our attention was first drawn by Bühler.² This subject also has received consideration at some length in the Introduction.

       In connection with Samudragupta, there is mentioned in verse 7 (line 14), a city named Pushpa, which is spoken of in such a way as to indicate that it was his capital. Pushpapura, Pushpapurī and Kusumapura, all meaning ‘the town or city of flowers’, were names of Pāṭāliputra which is now represented by the modern Pāṭnā in Bihār, on the Ganges, but which
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¹ CII., Vol. III, 1888, pp. 107-08, Plate XIV.
² See also A. A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1925, p. 320; A. B. Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1928, pp. 76-78, 300 and 332.