North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

No. 21: PLATE XXI

KARAMḌĀṀḌĀ STONE INSCRIPTION OF KUMĀRAGUPTA I: THE YEAR 117

        The existence of this inscription was first brought to notice by Kunwar Kamta Prasad in 1908, when he was Deputy Collector, Faizabad, the chief town of the Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh. A summary of its contents was published by J.Ph. Vogel in the PRAS,.W.C. for the year ending 31st March, 1908, p. 39. The inscription was first edited by R. D. Banerji in the Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. I, p. 458 and afterwards by Sten Konow in the Ep. Ind., Vol. X, pp. 70-72, accompanied by a plate.

       The inscription is incised on a liṅga of greyish sand-stone which was excavated from a mound called Bharādhī Ḍīḥ near the village of Karamḍāṁḍā,¹ about twelve miles from Faizabad on the road to Shahganj, in the District of Faizabad. The liṅga itself consists of an upper circular portion, 1' 1" high and 10-7/8" in diameter, rising from an octagonal base 1' 9" high. The inscription is incised on five faces of the octagonal base of the liṅga, which is now deposited in the State Museum, Lucknow.

       The writing covers a space 1' 5-¼" high and 1' 7-½" broad, and consists at present of eleven lines. Some letters of the first two lines in the top right hand corner have been effaced but they can be restored from other Gupta records. Across the base, at a distance of 11" from the bottom, runs an indentation below line 4, which has partially obliterated some of the top mātrās of letters in line 5. The lowermost portion, again, has been broken off. In other respects the inscription is in an excellent state of preservation. The average size of the letters is 1 ⅛". The characters belong to the western variety of the Gupta alphabet except perhaps that foe m. This lats is curiously shaped, being neither of the eastern nor of the western variety and closely resembles ā, e.g., in Āyōdhyaka- in line 10. Other palaeographic peculiarities are also worthy of note, though they are of a minor nature. The short u is denoted in different ways; compare the u of ku and gu in Kumāragupta- occurring in lines 3 and 7, and also the u, of nu in–nudhyā-tasya, line 2. The form of the initial i in i ty=ēvam, line 8, and the initial ā in Āyōdhyaka-, line 10, are further worthy of note. The former agrees with that in the Kahāuṁ pillar inscription of Skandagupta. And the latter looks like the m of this inscription, as just remarked. Attention may also be invited to the subscript y which is sometimes so engraved as to look almost like its initial form; compare, e.g., the subscripty y in–nudhyātasya in line 2 with that of Kumārāmātya in line 6. The language is Sanskrit; and the inscription is in prose so far as it preserved. In respect of orthography we may note (1) the doubling of a consonant before r in –gōttra, lines 5 and 10, but not in putrō, line 5, or putraḥ, line 6; (2) and after r in–pūrvvāyām and –āchāryya-, line 4, in yathō-karttavya-dhārmmika-karmmaṇā, line 9; (3) the change of anusvāra to n before d in=syān=divasa=pūrvvāyām, line 4; (4) the use of chchh in the beginning of a word in chchhandōgy=, line 4; and the change of visarga to ś in conjunction with a following ś, in Kumārāmātyaś= Śikhara-, line 6.

       The inscription refers itself to the reign Kumāragupta I of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. It is dated, in words, “in the century of years of the victorious rule (of the Guptas) increased by seventeen (435-36 A.D.) on the tenth day of Kārttika.” The object of it is to recored a gift made by Pṛithivīshēṇa, son of Chandragupta II’s Mantri-Kumārāmātya Śikharasvāmin, who was the son of Vishṇupālitabhaṭṭa, who, in turn, was the son of Kuramāraṇyabhatṭa. This last is described as Preceptor and Chanter of the Sāmavēda and pertaining to Aśvavājin gōtra. Aśvavājin is most probably identical with Vājivājin mentioned as a division of the Kaṇva gōtra in the Baudhāyana-śrautasūtra.²
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¹ PRAS. N. C., 1907-08, p. 39.
² Bibiliotheca Indica Series, Vol. III, Fasc. I, (No. 1379), p. 453.