North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS

MATHURĀ IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF KUMĀRAGUPTA I : YEAR 125

        (Line 9-11) It being resolved that it might be granted, one kulyavāpa (of land) was given (him) on acceptance of three dīnāras in the region north-west of Ḍōṅgā according to the determination of the record-keepers, Riśidatta, Jayanandin and Vibhudatta.

       (Line 12) The stanzas connected with grants of land are:

       (Line 1) “He, who takes away land given by himself or by others, having become a worm in excreta, rots with his forefathers.”

No. 23 : PLATE XXIII

MATHURA IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF KUMARAGUPTA I : YEAR 125

       The inscription is engraved on the pedestal of a broken standstone image which was discovered, some years ago, while digging for the foundation of a room in the Collector’s office at Mathurā, the headquarters of the district of the same name in Uttar Pradesh. It is now deposited in the Archaeological Museum at Mathura (accession No. 64.12). The proper right portion of the pedestal of the image, which appears to be that of standing Buddha, is broken away resulting in the loss of some letters at the beginning of the first two lines and of all the letters in the third line. The inscription was noticed in A.R. Ep., 1965-66, as No. B 677 and was edited by V. N. Srivastava in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXXVII, pp. 153-54 and plate.

       The characters belong to the western variety of the Gupta alphabet. The language is Sanskrit. In respect of orthography, it may be noted that the consonant following r is re-duplicated; e.g, in sarvva, line 2.

       The inscription refers itself to the reign of Kumāragupta I of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. It is dated in the year 125, and the ninth day of the month Āśvayuja. When referred to the Gupta era, this date would fall in 444-45 A.D. The inscription is benedictory in nature and its object is to record the gift of the image by a native of Mathurā whose name is damaged, the extant portion reading māradāsa-bhaṭṭa. So his name seems to have been Kumāradāsabhaṭṭa.¹ The inscription is important as it the only dated epigraph from Mathurā, known so far, referring to the reign of Kumāragupta. It is also the only known Gupta record referring to Mathurā.

       The only geographical name which occurs is Mathurā and is evidently modern Mathurā from where the record is found.
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of the Gupta period; thus nīvīdharma-kshaya, line 7 of No.19 above and akshaya-nīvī, line 26 of No.33 below and line 3 of CII., Vol. III, 1888, No. 62. The latter word occurs in earlier inscriptions also, e.g., in Nasik cave inscriptions No. 12, line 4; No. 15, line 8 (Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, pp. 82 and 88). R. G. Bhandarkar was the first to translate this phrase by ‘permanent endowment’ (Trans. Inter. Cong. Ori., 1876. pp. 331-32). We may, therefore, assign the following significations to (1) nīvī, (2) akshaya-nīvī and (3) nīvī-dharma. Nīvī by itself denotes ‘the capital, principal or stock.’ It could be put into any business temporarily or permanently. If it is placed permanently, it becomes akshaya-nīvī and the interest accruing from it may be utilised for the maintenance of charities from generation to generation, as we learn from the Nasik cave inscriptions. But the characteristic (dharma) of money laid by (nīvī) was that it fetched interest (vṛiddhi) whether it was deposited temporarily or perpectually. And in the present instance if the phrase nīvī-dharma has any meaning, what seems to have been done is that the Brāhmaṇa did not own the land but rather held it in perpetuity in exchange for the three dīnāras deposited with the State. The copper-plate does not thus actually represent the sale deed in the ordinary sense of the phrase, because the State was the owner of it.
¹ Cf. Jayabhaṭṭa occurring in another Mathurā stone image inscription of the Gupta year 230 (CII.,Vol. III, 1888, P. 273).