North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

urasā in the same line. The size of the letters varies from 1-5/6” to ½”. The Characters belong to the eastern variety of the Gupta alphabet; and, allowing for the stiffness resulting from engraving in so hard a substance as the iron of this column, they approximate in many respects very closely to those of the Allahābād pillar inscription of Samudragupta, No. 1 above, Plate I. But, as a distinguishing feature, we have to notice the very marked matrās, or horizontal top-strokes of the letters, which we also observe in the Bilsaḍ stone pillar inscription of Kumāra- gupta I, No. 16 below, pages 267 ff. and Plate XVI. The language is Sanskrit; and the inscription is in verse throughout. In respect of orthography, we have to notice (1) the use of the dental nasal, instead of the anusvāra, before ś, in prānśu, line 6; (2) the doubling of t, in conjunction with a following r, in śattru, line 1; and (3) the very unusual omission of the second t, which is formative and not due to the preceding r, in mūrtyā for mūrttyā, and kīrtyā for kīrttyā, line 3.

        The inscription is an6 eulogy of the conquests of a powerful king named Chandra, as to whose lineage no information is given. Nevertheless, as pointed out above, it must belong to Chandragupta II when he abdicated the throne and settled down as Vānaprastha¹ at Vishṇupada. It is not dated.² It is a Vaishṇava inscription; and the object of it is to record the erection of the pillar, which is called a dhvaja, or ‘standard,’³ of the god Vishṇu, on a hill called—Vishṇupada. We are expressly told that this pillar was erected by Chandra whose mind was fixed upon Vishṇu with devotion. This also shows that Chandra was alive at that time. And this further agrees with the fact that in Gupta inscriptions he has been styled Bhāgavata.

        “As regards this hill named Vishṇupada, and the question whether it should be identified with that part of the Delhi Ridge on which the column stands” says J. F. Fleet, “the actual position of the column is in a slight depression, with rising ground on both sides; a position which hardly answers to the description of its being on a giri or ‘hill’. And this, coupled with the tradition that the column was erected, in the early part of the eighth century A.D., by Anaṅgapāla, the founder of the Tōmara dynasty,⁴ lays it quite open to argument whether this is the real original position of the column, or whether, like the Aśōka columns at Delhi, and possibly the Aśōka (and Gupta) column at Allahābād, it was brought to where it now stands from some other place. But the fact that the underground supports of the column include several small pieces of metal ‘like bits of bar-iron,”⁵ remarks Fleet further, “is in favour of its being now in its original position; as they would probably have been overlooked, and left behind, in the process of a transfer.”⁶ But as a matter of fact such was precisely the case with the Delhi stone column of Aśōka which was removed from Topra (Ambala District, Panjab) along with the foundation stone.⁷ It is possible that this iron pillar also was removed from
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¹ Introd., pp. 57-61. For different views of the identification of Chandra, see Ind. Ant., Vol. XLII, pp. 217 ff., Vol. XLVIII, pp. 98 and ff.; S. K. Aiyangar’s Studies in Gupta History (Reprint from Jour. Ind. His.), pp. 14 and ff.; Raychaudhuri’s Pol. His. Anc. Ind. (3rd ed.) pp. 328 ff. and p. 364, note; Basak’s Hist. North-Eastern Ind., pp. 13-14 and 16-18; D. C. Sircar, Sel. Ins., 1965, p. 284, note 4.
² Prinsep allotted this inscription to the third or fourth century A.D.; and Bhau Daji, to a period later than the time of the Guptas. Fergusson (Indian Architecture, p. 508), drawing special attention to the Persian form of the capital, expressed a conviction that the inscription is of one of the Chandragupta of the Early Gupta dynasty, and consequently belongs to A.D. 363 or 400. Fleet’s own impression at first, on independent grounds, was to allot it to Chandragupta I.
³ Compare dhvaja-stambha, ‘flag-staff,’ as applied to the Ēraṇ column in line 9 of No. 39 below. There is another iron column, at Dhār, the ancient Dhārā, now the chief town of the Dhār District in Madhya Pradesh. But there is no ancient inscription on it (A.R. ASI., 1902-03, pp. 205 and ff.).
⁴ CASIR., Vo. I, p. 171.
⁵ Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 28, and Plate v.
⁶ CII., Vol. III, 1888, pp. 140-41.
⁷ D. R. Bhandarkar’s Aśōka (2nd ed.), pp. 215-17.