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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS The inscription of Chandragupta II now published, in on the upper part of the present proper left side of the stone, and the writing covers a space of about 4" broad by 14-½" high. It was originally brought to notice, in 1873, by General Cunningham, who published his reading of the text of lines 10 to 17 in the CASIR., Vol. III, p. 55, with a lithograph of the whole (ibid., Pl. xx, No. I). The first two entire lines, and the last half of each of the remaining lines, have been broken away and lost. The remnant of the inscription, however, is fairly well preserved and easy to read. The average size of the letters is 1 5/6". The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets, and are practically of the same type as those of the Allahābād pillar inscription of Samudragupta, No. 1, pp. 203 ff. above, Plate I. We use the word ‘practically’ because m, l and h are, in all cases, of the eastern variety. But s in two instances is of the western type, s in divasa-, line 3 and in –ska(ndh)aṁ, line 17 ,all other cases of this character presenting the eastern. Further, the characters include in lines 7, 11, and 16, forms of the numerical symbols for 8, 10, and 80. The language is Sanskrit; and the inscription is in prose throughout. In respect of orthography, the only point requiring notice is the doubling of y and v after the anusvāra, in saṁyyukta, lines 8 and 9, and -saṁvvatsarē, line 11. In the first part of the inscription, lines 1 to 9, the date and the name of the king are entirely broken away and lost. So also the name in the second part. But, in the latter part, lines 10 to 17, we have the date, in numerical symbols, of the year eight-eight (406-07 A.D.). And this, coupled with the epithet Paramabhāgavata in line 10, followed by the beginning of the title Mahārājādhirāja, shows that the inscription, in this part, certainly belongs to the time of the Imperial Gupta king Chandragupta II. And the first part is so plainly engraved by the same hand,—and is, moreover, not separated by any dividing line,—that it must certainly be allotted to the same reign, and supposed to be of practically the same contents. Both the parts seem to record the gift of ten dīnāras as a contribution to the perpetual maintenance of a sattra, or charitable almshouse, apparently by a woman who was the wife of Mātṛidāsa, Chief of House-holders and an inhabitant of Pāṭaliputra. The contribution was made over to a Brāhmaṇa whose name is lost but who bore the surname of Sadāsattra-sāmānya, the first part of which is apparently the old name of the place where the inscription was originally engraved and was so called because it was a place of perpetual almshouse.
TEXT ............................................First Part 1 [Paramabhāgavata-mahārājādhirāja-śrī-Chandragupta-rājya]- ............................................Second Part 10 Paramabhāgavata-mahā[rājādhirāja-śrī-Chandragupta-rā]-
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