North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

from a copy by B. H. Hodgson. This lithograph was not accompanied by any details of the contents of the inscription; and it is a very imperfect one; especially in showing no traces whatever of the first six or seven letters of each line, all the way down. And in 1837, in the same Journal, Vol. VI, pp. 451 ff., Prinsep published his reading of the text, and a translation of it, accompanied by a lithograph, reduced from copies on cloth and paper made by Captain Edward Smith, of the Engineers (ibid., Plate xxv). It was edited critically for the first time by J. F. Fleet, in CII., Vol. III, 1888, pp. 29 ff., Plate III B.

       (Sāñchī, or Sāchī, is a village about twelve miles to the north-east of Diwāṇgañj, the chief town of the Diwāṇgañj Tashil or Sub-Division of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. It is sometimes called Sāñchī-Kānākhēḍā, through its name being coupled with that of another small village immediately to the north of it.

       The writing, which covers a space of about 2’ 6-1/4” broad by 1’ 9” high, is on the outer side of the top rail in the second row, outside and on the south side of the eastern gateway of the Great Stūpa. The inscription is very well preserved, except that two or three letters are destroyed and quite illegible near the commencement of each line as far as line 8. The average size of the letters id ⅝”. The characters belong to the western variety of the Gupta alphabet and approximate most closely to, in the present volume, those of the Mandasōr inscription of Kumāragupta and Bandhuvarman, No. 36 below, Plate xxxvi, and, elsewhere, those of the Aihoḷe incription¹ of the Western Chalukya king Pulakēśin II of Śaka-saṁvat 556 (634-35 A.D.). They include, in line 11, forms of the numerical symbols for 3, 4 and 90. The language is Sanskrit; and the inscription is in prose throughout. In respect of orthography, the only point that calls for notice is the use of the dental s, instead of the visarga or the upadhmānīya, in conjunction with p, in yaśas-patāka, line 4.

       The inscription refers itself to the reign of Chandragupta II of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. Its date, in numerical symbols, is the year ninety three (411-12 A.D.), on the fourth day, without any specification of the lunar fortnight, of the month Bhādrapada (August-September). It is a Buddhist inscription; and the object of it is to record the grant, by Amrakārdava or Āmrakārdava, son of Undāna, of a village called Īśvaravāsaka, and a sum of money, to the Ārya-Saṁgha, at the Great Buddhist Convent of Kākanādabōṭa, for the purpose of feeding mendicants and maintaining lamps. Āmrakārdava was presumably an officer of Chandragupta II. He describes himself to be an anujīvin or dependent of this king, to have achieved victories in many battles, and, above all, as selling off three rājakulas or palaces which have been named. It seems that Āmrakārdava was something like a quarter-master entrusted with the duty of the making out of camp and assignment of quarters. It further seems that Chandragupta’s establishment, apparently at Vidiśā, broke up before Bhādrapada of the Gupta year 93 when he retired from the world and that consequently Āmrakārdava had to sell off the palaces which had been occupied by the king and his party. With the money so realised which was apparently the king’s own half, the village of Īśvaravāsaka was purchased for feeding monks and burning lamps for the acquisition of virtues by Chandragupta Dēvarāja.

       The Kākanādabōṭa Convent, says Fleet, is the Great Sāñchī Stūpa itself. But a vihāra, which is a place of residence for monks, is always distinguished in Buddhist literature from a thūpa or stūpa, which is an object of worship. The remains of many monasteries were exhumed by John Marshall during his excavations at Sāñchī. But none of them is earlier than the seventh century A.D. In some places, however, he lighted upon traces of older monasteries on which the later ones were erected. Anyhow the Mahāvihāra referred to in this record has not
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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, pp. 1 ff.