South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

SOHNAG TERRACOTTA SEAL OF AVANTIVARMAN

that it was only a casual find in a field not associated with any ancient ruins. In may, however, be stated that the findspot, lying within the Gorakhpur District, was well within the tarāī, which marked the northern boundaries of the Maukhari kingdom.^[1]

The seal is of terracotta but the baking is imperfect, the surface of the inscription having become smoky in a reducing atmosphere in the kiln. It is a plano-convex oval, which, including the rim, measures 7·3″ by 6·6″, but the sunk inscribed portion measures 6″ by 5¼″. The convex reverse rises to 2·6″ from the rim but is rather irregular and shows a hole in the thickness just below the inscription for attachment, even as seals were attached to land grants. It weighs 184 tolas. A little more than one-third of the upper field of the seal is occupied by certain figures showing in the centre a garlanded bull to proper right, behind whose hump rises an umbrella with two streamers flowing backwards like those from a wheel or sun-emblem held in his left hand by an attendant to proper right, whose figure is, however, blurred. The man to left holds a chaurī brush or a stick in his right hand and a long handled axe in his left. These figures appear to be exactly similar to those depicted on the Aśīrgaḍh^[2] and Nālandā^[3] seals of Śarvavarman with this difference only that in the present seal a flowing end of the garment is also shown on the figure to proper right. Explaining these figures, Dr. Hirananda Sastri says, “The bull usually stands for dharma : The two male figures are, perhaps, the chāṇḍālas, who want to kill the animal. The idea underlying the emblem seems to be that the tampering with the seal is as heinous as the killing of a bull or violating the dharma”.^[3] This interpretation of the symbols would amount to an imprecation and limit their utility only to the safety of the seal, though it is well known that royal seals in ancient India show varied symbols which could hardly be so explained. On the other hand, they had a direct bearing on the religious tendency of a ruler or a particular dynasty.^[4]

Thus Garuḍa on the Gupta seals^[5] refers to their being ; the bull on the Sōnpat seal^[6] of Harshavardhana recalls his title of ; the Bhagavatī on the Pratīhāra seals represents the tutelary deity of the dynasty. D.R. Sahni rightly calls “a flying figure of Garuḍa and a conch-shell” in the Gāhaḍavāla seals to be “in conformity with the Vaishṇava faith of the king who issued the plates”.^[7] This common practice would indicate that the seal symbols had a wider significance than that imagined by Dr. Sastri. Probably the held by the men led Dr. Sastri to call them chāṇḍālas, but they might be attendant protectors or Gaṇas of the bull, , of Śiva, one of whose weapons is . This Śaiva interpretation of the symbols is in conformity with the Brahmanical proclivities of the Maukhari rulers, also borne out by their assumption of the title , while the (umbrella) may refer to their claim to sole sovereignty of the earth .^[8]

The characters belong to the Northern class of alphabets and may be dated to the latter part of the sixth century A.D. when forms with a profusion of flourishes had already been long in vogue. In this connection attention may be invited to the formation of in line 3 in , which is entirely different from the same in all the known seals of Śarva-

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^[1] Cf. R. S. Tripathi : History of Kanauj, p. 55.
^[2]J. F. Fleet : Corpus InscriptionumIndicarum, Vol. III, pp. 219-21.
^[3]Above, Vol. XXI, pp. 73-74.
^[4] Cf. J. N. Banerjea : The Development of Hindu Iconography, p. 11.
^[5] Hirananda Sastri : Nalanda and its Epigraphic Material (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 66), pp. 64-67
^[6] Fleet : op. cit., pp. 231-2.
^[7] Above, Vol. XIV, p. 192.
^[8] Cf. Kālidasa : , canto II, verse 47, where this very expression is used, also of, is Bhāsa’s (Sanskrit) where a similar idea is expressed by |