North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

Kapila, for the commemoration¹ of the preceptors and for the augmentation of the religious merit of himself.

        (Lines 10-16) (It is) not written for (my own) fame, but for beseeching the worshippers of Mahēśvara. And it is an address to (those who are) the Āchāryas for the time being. Thinking them to be (their own) property, they should preserve, worship, and honour (them) as (their own) property. This is the request. Whosoever will do harm to these memorials or (destroy) the writing above or below, shall be possessed of the five great sins and the five minor sins.

        (Line 17) And may divine Daṇḍa be always victorious, whose staff is terrific and who is the foremost leader.

No. 7 : PLATE VII

UDAYAGIRI CAVE INSCRIPTION OF CHANDRAGUPTA II: THE YEAR 82

       This inscription appears to have been first brought to notice in 1854 by General Cunningham, in his Bhilsa Topes, pp. 150 ff., where he published his reading of the text, and a translation of it, accompanied by a lithograph (ibid., Plate xxi, No. 200). In 1858, in his edition, of Prinsep’s Essays, Vol. I, pp. 246 ff. note 4, E. Thomas published his own reading of the text, accompanied by a translation by Professor H. H. Wilson. And, finally, in 1880, in his CASIR., Vol. X, p. 50, General Cunningham published his revised reading of the text, and a revised translation of it, accompanied by a fresh lithograph (ibid., Plate xix). It was thereafter edited critically by J. F. Fleet, in CII., Vol. III, 1888, pp. 21 ff. accompanied by Plate II B.

       Udayagiri² is a well-known hill, with a small village of the same name on the eastern side of it, about two miles to the north-west of Bhēlsā,³ the chief town of the Vidiśā District, Madhya Pradesh. On the eastern side of the hill, a little to the south of the village, and almost on the level of the ground, there is a cave-temple, which from its containing this inscription, General
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¹ Kirti in lines 9 and 15 should be distinguished from khyāti in line 11. K. T. Telang (Ind. Ant., Vol. IX, p. 36, note 13) first brought to notice, on the authority of Bhagwanlal Indraji, that in certain connection kīrtana has the meaning of ‘a temple’; e.g. in line 18 of the Khārēpāṭaṇ grant of Anantadēva, dated Śaka-Saṁvat 1016 (ibid., p. 34), which he was then editing. Nevertheless, Fleet lost sight of this meaning when he translated verses in lines 14-17 of the Baroda grant of the Gujarāt Rāshṭrakūṭa Karka II, dated Śaka 734 (ibid., Vol. XII, p. 163). Soon thereafter R. G. Bhandarkar drew attention to the annotation of Telang and pointed out the error into which Fleet had fallen (ibid., Vol. XII, pp. 228 ff). He was also able to quote three passages from the Agni-Purāṇa, (in the Bibliotheca Indica, Vol. I, p. 111), Bāṇa’s Kādambarī, and Sōmēśvara’s Kīttikaumudī in which the word evidently has the same meaning. And to these instances Fleet was afterwards himself able to add the ‘Dudahi’ inscriptions of Dēvalabdhi (Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 289), and the Udayagiri inscription, dated Vikrama-Saṁvat 1093 (ibid., Vol. XIII, p. 185). On the analogy of these authorities, there is every reason for allotting the same meaning, when required, to kīrtti, which is a derivative from the same root. But the words kirtti and kīrtana are hardly to be actually translated by ‘temple’, or by any other specific term; they denote generally ‘any monument, or work, calculated to render famous the name of the constructor of it’. This is in accordance with the etymology of the words, from the root kṛīt, ‘to mention, commemorate, praise’. And the particular work referred to may be a temple, as in the instances quoted above; a memorial, as in the present case; or a tank, as in Nos. 44, 45 of CII., Vol. III (1888), p. 212, note 6. Another passage in which kīrtti has the same meaning, though we have no information now as to the specific nature of the work referred to, is in lines 4 ff., of an inscription on the right-hand side pier in the porch of the temple of Vaidyanātha at ‘Deoghar’ in the ‘Santāl’ Pargaṇās in the Bengal Presidency, edited by Rajendralala Mitra in the JBAS., Vol. LII, part i. [See the article on Kīrti—Its Connotation by B. Ch Chhabra in Siddha Bhāratī, Vol. I, pp. 38 ff. and Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, p. 184.—Ed.].
² Spelt as Udyagiri in Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. XXIV, p. 108, and described as “situated in 23° 32’ N. and 77° 46’ E., between the Betwā and the Besh rivers.” See also Atlas, ibid., Vol. XXVI, New (Revised 1931) edition, pl. 27.
³ The ‘Bhilsa or Bhelsa’ of maps, etc., spelt Bhīlsa in the Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. VIII, p. 105.