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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS The inscription refers itself to the reign of Kumāragupta (I) of the Imperial gupta dynasty. It is dated, in words, in the year ninety-six (415-16 A.D.); but without any specification of the month and date. Its object is to record the accomplishment, by a certain Dhruvaśarman, at a temple of the god Svāmi-Mahāsēna, of certain works, viȥ., (1) the construction of a pratōlī,¹ or ‘gateway’; (2) the establishment, apparently, of a sattra or charitable hall or alms-house; and (3) the erection of the column with the inscription on it, to record the above acts. The name of the donor has been twice given in this inscription as Dhruvaśarman. But in line 11 Śarma is separated from Dhruva. It seems that Dhruva was his personal name and Śarma his family name. Śarma is still a family name in Bengal and was even a clan name as early as the Mahābhārata period.2
TEXT [Metres: Verse 1 Sragdharā; verse 2 Śārdūlavikṛīḍita.] 1 . . . . . . [sarvva-rāj-ōchchhēttuḥ pṛithivyām=apratirathasya chatur-udadh*]i-[sa*]-
[lil-āsvā*]dita-yaśasō
1 For fully understanding this term, see J. Ph. Vogel’s informing article on The Sanskrit pratōli and its
New-Indian Derivatives in JRAS., 1906, pp. 539 ff. From the Sanskrit texts quoted in this article, it seems to denote
a strongly built gateway connected with a road. The Sanskrit pratōlī has now been preserved in the Hindi derivative pōl which we find used in connection with many city gates, especially in Rajasthan. It is not unlikely that in
this particular case pratōlī denotes the gateway in the enclosure of the temple of Mahāsēna connecting the principal
streets of the town with the road leading to the shrine inside. That this word has this meaning in the present inscription may be seen from the fact that the pratōlī of Dhruvaśarman has been compared to a svarga-sōpāna, “a flight of
steps (leading) to heaven.”
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