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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA reading of the inscription, published in the same journal, Vol. X, 1943, pp. 63-67[1]. In his article published above, Dr. Bhattasali speaks of the unsatisfactory state of the preservation of the record and of the difficulty with which he succeeded in deciphering the text. A photograph of the inscription as well as an inked impression was published to illustrate Dr. Bhattasali’s paper in the Epigraphia Indica. The photograph is, however, absolutely unreadable while the impression was the subject of the following editorial comment from the Government Epigraphist for India : “ The impression reproduced here is much ‘ doctored ’. An attempt is being made to procure a more faithful impression which will be published when available ”. The attempt of the Government Epigraphist to secure a good impression of the record was unfortunately not successful till the beginning of 1952 when I was asked to examine and copy the inscription in the course of my tour in Eastern India. Accordingly I visited Nowgong, the headquarters of the District of that name in Assam, on the 5th March 1952 and left for the findspot of the inscription the same day. From Nowgong I reached Ḍabakā on the river Jamunā, which lies 24 miles away on the motor road from Nowgong to Hozāi. There I learnt that the inscribed rock lies in the vicinity of Ḍakmakā (from Mikir Ḍaṅmukāk, ‘ a bend ’) on a rain-bow like bend of the river Ḍikharu or Ḍikhru (from Kachhari ḍi, ‘ water ’), 16½ miles away on the other side of a reserved forest. Fortunately, the Forest Department of the Assam Government has now constructed a motorable road from Ḍabakā to Ḍakmakā, although a wooden bridge on a small stream at Ḍeṅgao (11½ miles from Ḍabakā and 5 miles from Ḍakmakā) was being reconstructed after dismantling when I had to travel by that road. I had therefore to reach Ḍakmakā from Ḍeṅgao on foot. The inscribed boulder lies on the Baḍagaṅgā which is a small stream joining on the one hand the Hārkāṭhī and on the other the Dīghalpānī. The place is half a mile from Ṭekegao which is about 2 miles from Ḍakmakā. Thus I found the inscription about 19 miles from the Ḍabakā Bazaar, although Bhattasali has given the distance of the place as about 14 miles north-east of Ḍabakā (written by him Ḍabokā). I was really very glad to find that the epigraph was in a much better state of preservation than that suggested by Dr. Bhattasali’s photograph. It is necessary to record here in this connection that in reaching the inscribed boulder I received considerable help from the officers of the Forest Department of the Government of Assam at Nowgong, Ḍabakā, Ḍeṅgao and Ḍakmakā.
The main point in my comments on Dr. Bhattasali’s reading of the Baḍagaṅgā inscription, to which reference has been made above, concerned the second symbol in the date of the record. Bhattasali believed that it is an l-type form of 30, while I suggested that it is an s-type form of 40. It is gratifying to me that all epigraphists who had occasion to give their opinion on the reading of the symbol have supported my reading against Bhattasali’s.[2] But an examination of the original inscription and its impressions prepared by myself revealed to me several mistakes not only in Dr. Bhattasali’s transcript but also in my comments on it, based as they were on an unreliable illustration of the record. The Government Epigraphist for India rightly noticed that considerable doctoring has rendered the impression published along with Dr. Bhattasali’s paper absolutely unreliable for scientific purposes. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the whole inscription can be more or less easily read from my impressions. It is also seen that Dr. Bhattasali’s attempt to show the letters clearly on the impression by means of inking the supposed blank space outside their incision has resulted in many letters appearing in his doctored impression not as they actually are in the ___________________________________________
[1] My comments on Bhattasali’s reading and interpretation of the Baḍagaṅgā and Kulkuri inscriptions were
first offered in a note added to my paper on the reign-periods of Samudragupta and Chandragupta II, published
in the Chaitra (B.S. 1348) issue of the Bhāratavarsha (Bengali), Calcutta.
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