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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA Verse 5 speaks of Gauri’s maternal grandfather whose name is lost but may have ended with the akshara nta and gives the name of his mother as Hariśūrā. The next stanza (verse 6) says that, after attaining something (the name of which is lost but which may be widowhood or old age) or reaching something like a place, the lady (queen mother Hariśūrā) performed penances, gave gifts to Brāhmaṇas and ultimately went to heaven. Verse 7 taken up the thread from verse 4 and the sentence is continued in the following stanza (verse 8). The two verse 7-8 run : Yēna kūpās=taṭākāni maṇḍapāś=cha manōha[rāḥ |] ............. vṛiddhyartha[ṁ] grāmēshu nagarēshu cha || [7*] Tēn=ēdaṁ(n=āyaṁ) nagar-ābhyā[sē] ..................vṛiddhayē | khānitaṁ(ta)s=sa[rvva-satvā(ttvā)nāṁ] sukha-pē[yō ja]lā[ śayaḥ ||] [8*] The most probable restoration of the lost aksharas at the beginning of the third foot of verse 7 and of the second foot of verse 8, considering the context discussed above, appears to be kāritāḥ puṇyaº and mātuḥ puṇy-ābhiº respectively. The stanzas therefore state as follows with reference to Gauri mentioned in verse 5 : “ By whom wells, tanks and beautiful buildings [were made] in the villages and towns, for the increase [of his fame], by him has this tank, (with waters) to be drunk by all creatures with pleasure, been excavated in the vicinity of the city (Daśapura) for the increase [of his mother’s merit].” Of the next stanza (verse 9), only a few letters are visible and its purport is not clear.
It will be seem from the contents of the inscription analysed above that Mahārāja Gauri excavated a tank in the suburbs of Daśapura for the merit of his deceased mother, when narēndra Ādityavardhana had his headquarters there. This would suggest that the latter was the overlord of the former who excavated the tank at his overlord’s capital at a considerable distance from his own residence. As it was the custom to excavate a tank where the funeral pile of the deceased person stood,[1] it is possible to think that the mother of Mahārāja Gauri died at the capital of her son’s overlord. The language of verses 7-8 saying that king Gauri, who made wells, tanks and maṇḍapas in various villages and towns apparently in his own kingdom, excavated the particular tank in the neighbourhood of the city (meaning Daśapura) may, however, suggest that Daśapura was his own capital. In that case, Ādityavardhana was just another name of Gauri, although the unsatisfactory composition of the document, already discussed above, does not make this point clear at all. The second of the two interpretations suggested here may perhaps be supported by the fact that the more elaborate praśasti of Gauri in his other record from ChhōṭīSādrī (about 32 miles from Mandasōr), which lay within his own territory, does not speak of his overlord, while the names of his grandfather and great-grandfather, viz. Rāshṭravardhana and Rājyavardhana, render it possible that he had also a similar name ending in vardhana. Other possibilities will be discussed below in connection with the history of Daśapura in the period in question. Although Daśapura is mentioned as a holy place of pilgrimage in an inscription[2] of the second century A. D., the city became famous as the capital of the Aulikara dynasty which flourished in West Mālwa after the country had passed to the Guptas when Chandragupta II Vikramāditya (376-414 A. D.) extirpated Śaka rule from West India about the close of the fourth century.[3] The early Aulikaras owed allegiance to the Gupta emperors who tolerated their use of the Mālava era in preference to the era of their own (i.e. the Gupta era). The extirpation of the Śakas by a Gupta Vikramāditya and the patronage of the Aulikaras of Mālava origin and of the Mālava era by ________________________________________________
[1] JAHRS, Vol. XIX. p. 207.
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