|
The Indian Analyst
|
|
South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA No. 31─MATHURA IMAGE INSCRIPTION OF VASUDEVA (1 Plate) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND Recently I had an opportunity of examining a few impressions of an inscription in five lines incised on the base of a stone image of the Buddha now preserved in the Archaeological Museum at Mathura as Exhibit No. 2907. The image was discovered at Palikhra which is a well-known ancient site about 4 miles from Mathura. A short note on the epigraph, with a transcript of the first three lines of writing but without any facsimile, was published in the Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Hyderabad, 1941, pp. 163-64. The author of the note, however, could not read the last two lines of the record and his partial transcript is also not free from errors. The inscription is fragmentary, some letters at the commencement of all the five lines being broken away and lost. The preservation of lines 1-3 of the extant part of the writing is fairly satisfactory, although, even in this part of the record, a few aksharas are damaged or unsatisfactorily preserved. The upper part of some letters in line 4 is broken away while, in line 5, some aksharas are partially preserved and some altogether lost. The characters of the inscription are Brāhmī as found in the epigraphs of the Kushāṇa age. The language is an admixture of Sanskrit and Prakrit. As regards orthography, the record resembles most other Brāhmī inscriptions of the Kushāṇas. It is dated in the year 64 or 67 apparently of the Kaṇishka era which is usually identified with the Śaka-kāla of 78 A. D.[4] The date of the inscription therefore falls in 142 or 145 A.D. The first line of the inscription gives details of the date and mentions the monarch during whose reign it was engraved. This is the most important part of the record. The line begins ______________________________________________ [4] The Age of Imperial Unity (The History and Culture of the Indian People, Vol. II), pp. 144 ff. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| > |
|
>
|
