North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

DHANĀIDAHA COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF KUMĀRAGUPTA 1:
YEAR 113

TEXT

1 Siddham [|*] Paramabhaṭṭāraka-Māhārājādhirāja¹-śrī-Kumāragupta[s]ya v[i*] ja[ya]-rājya(jyē) 100 7² [Adhi*]ka-[Śrāva*]ṇa-māsa-[di][va*] 20 [|*] asyā[ṁ] pū[rv]vā[yāṁ]K[ō]ṭṭiyā gaṇa (nā)-
2 d=Vidyādharī[t*]ō śākhātō Datil-āchā[r*]yya–prajñāpit[ā]yē Śāmāḍhyāyē Bhaṭṭibhavasya dhītu Guhamittra³-Pāli[ta]-prārt[thā]rikasya⁴ [kuṭumb*]iṇīyē pratimā pratishṭhāpi[tā] [||*]

TRANSLATION

        Luck ! (The year) 107; the intercalary month of Śrāvaṇa ; the day 20, (in) the victorious reign of the Paramabhaṭṭāraka Mahārājādhirāja, the prosperous Kumāragupta–when this was the specification (of date), then image was set up by Śāmāḍhyā (=Śyāmāḍhyā), daughter of Bhaṭṭibhava (and) wife of the lapidary⁵ Guhamitra Pālita, who had been commanded by Datilāchāyya (=Dattilāchārya) of the Kōṭṭiya-gaṇa and the Vidyādharī-śākha.

No. 19: PLATE XIX

DHANĀI6DAHA COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF KUMĀRAGUPTA 1 (:)
THE YEAR 113

       This inscription, engraved on a thin copper-plate which looks very much worn out and fragile, was discovered about 1906 A.D., in a village called Dhanāidaha in the Nātore Subdivision of the Rajshahi District in the Rajshahi Division of Bangladesh. Babu Akshaya Kumara Maitreya, Director of the Varendra Research Society of Rajshahi, obtained it from Khan Bahadur Muhammad Ershed Ali Khan Choudhuri, and it is now deposited in the Museum of the Society along with the five copper-plate inscriptions of the Gupta period discovered in April 1915 at Dāmōdarpur in the District of West Dinajpur. It was edited in 1909 by R. D. Banerji then of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, in the JASB., Vol. V, No. 11, pp. 459-61. Banerji’s decipherment of this fragmentary inscription was not correct as proved by the Dāmōdarpur records discovered subsequently. While editing two of these inscriptions belonging to the same monarch’s reign, Radha Govinda Basak revised the reading of this inscription and he re-edited it in the Bengali monthly, the Sāhitya of Calcutta, in the Pausha issue, 1323 B.S. Thereafter, he edited the inscription in the Ep. Ind., Vol. XVII, pp. 345 and ff.

       The inscription is a fragmentary one, consisting of 17 lines of writing incised in the early
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¹ Read –Mahārājādhirāja-.
² It is somewhat curious how after vijayarājya- Bühler reads sam [100 10] 3. Even the plate accompanying his text has clearly su which again is followed by the numerical symbol for 7. Then between this symbol and ka the stone is much damaged, showing, however, that two letters have been lost. After ka the only syllables that are quite whole and entire are māsa. But this mā was preceded immediately by ṇa which, though it is somewhat injured, is as good as certain. Between ka and ṇa there is a lacuna of two or three letters only. And we cannot be wide off the mark if the lacunae are filled up, as shown in the text, Bühler’s restoration Kārttika-Hīmanta-mīsasya divasē is not only very wide off the mark but also yields no good sense.
³ This name is doubtless Guhamittra, and not Grahamittra as Bühler reads
⁴ Bühler reads prā[tā]rika but admits in the foot-note that “possibly prābhārikasya is be read”. It looks more like prārt[thā]rikasya
⁵ If prār[tthā]rika is the correct reading, it stands for the Sanskrit prāstārika. ‘a dealer in prastara’. But prastara signifies both an ordinary and a precious stone. Perhaps the second sense is here intended. In that case, prāstārika denotes ‘a lapidary’.