|
The Indian Analyst
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA BHADRAK INSCRIPTION OF GANA ; REGNAL YEAR 8 in both the cases) remain. Only the upper parts of the next seven letters are visible and they suggest the reading : adhivāsaka Bhada. The second half of the line, in which some of the letters are damaged, seems to read : Apavasa [Mahāsa]ra Ghali Aḍasama [|]. The last two letters, sa ma, suggest a Brahmanic name ending in the word śarman exactly as Agisama=Agniśarman. Aḍasama may be Sanskrit Aṭaśarman. It is thus possible to think that this name is preceded in the record by other names, viz. Bhada (Sanskrit Bhadra), Apavasa (possibly Sanskrit Apavarsha), Mahāsara (possibly Sanskrit Mahāsāra) and Ghali (cf. Sanskrit Khalin). The possibility of the existence of the word adhivāsa(si)ka in the damaged first half of the line would suggest that it was preceded by the name of the locality where the persons mentioned resided. But what their relation was with witness grant recorded in the inscription cannot be determined with certainty. If they were merely witnesses to the transaction, they were probably residents of a locality near the gift land at Pānida.
Mahārāja Gaṇa, during whose reign the inscription was engraved-about the second half of the third century A.C., is not known from any other source. He seems to have been a ruler of the ancient Utkala country bounded by the rivers Vaitaraṇī[1] and Kansai (Ancient Kapiśā)[2] and lying between the lands inhabited by the Vaṅgas and the Kaliṅgas.[3] He was probably an independent monarch like the kings of Pushkaraṇā (modern Pokharna on the Damodar in South-West Bengal), who are known from the Susunia inscription. As already indicated above, king Chandravarman of Pushkaraṇā was overthrown by the Gupta emperor Samudragupta about the middle of the fourth century A.C. Whether the Utkala country was also conquered by Samudragupta about the same time is as yet unknown. The Sumaṇḍala plates[4] of the Gupta year 250 (569 A. C.), however, show that imperial Gupta suzerainty was acknowledged in Kaliṅga and presumably also in Utkala. Although it is difficult in the present state of our knowledge to ascribe the conquest of Kaliṅga and Utkala to a particular Gupta monarch, it is possible to suggest that the event took place before the death of Kumāragupta I, grandson of Samudragupta, in 455 A.C., as the successors of that monarch do not appear to have powerful enough to effect the annexation of such far off territories. There conquests should better be attributed to Samudragupta or to his son Chandragupta II Vikramāditya described as kṛitsna-pṛithvī-jay-ārtha in one of the Udayagiri inscriptions (cf. also the reference to his dig-vijaya in the Meharauli inscription).[5] As however Utkala is not mentioned in the Allahabad pillar inscription in connection with the victorious campaigns of Samudragupta, the second alternative seems preferable.[6] Whether the rulers of Āryāvarta, mentioned in that record as overthrown by the Gupta monarch, included a ruler of Utkala cannot be determined. We have said that the eighty measures of land granted by Mūlajapa were apportioned in a locality called Pānida. The place may not have been far away from Bhadrak, near which the inscription has been found. I have not succeeded in identifying the locality. TEXT[7] 1 [Siddham][8] [|*] Mah[ā]r[ā]ja-sir[i]-Gaṇasa sa[ṁ 8|] [M]ūlajap[ēna] d[ē]vā 3 dat[ā] _________________________________________________
[1] Cf. Mahābhārata, III, 114, 3 ; above, Vol. XXVIII, p. 179. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|