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Indian Epigraphy c6: Chapter I. Inscriptions and Their Evidence

Indian Epigraphy c6

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Chapter I. Inscriptions and Their Evidence

1. Indian Inscriptions

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Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, and ‘inscription’ literally means any writing engraved on some object. In India, rocks as well as lithic, metallic, earthen or wooden pillars, tablets, plates and pots, as also bricks, shells, ivory plaques and other objects were generally used for incising inscriptions. Often writing in relief such as we find in the legends on coins¹ and seals,² which are usually produced out of moulds or dies, and also records painted on cave walls or written in ink on wooden tablets are regarded as inscriptions, although these writings are not actually engraved. As is usually the case with inscriptions in the Perso-Arabic script, the letters of certain late medieval records in the indigenous Indian alphabets are generally not engraved but are formed by scooping out the space around them.

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¹ Thousands of early Indian coins have been discovered at various places in different parts of India. The earliest of these bear no legend. The fashion of mentioning the name of the issuing authority in the coin-legend was popularised in India by the foreign rulers beginning with the Indo-Greeks who conquered wide areas of North-Western India about the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. Most of the indigenous Indian coins bearing legends have to be assigned to later dates. See *The Age of Imperial Unity*, ed. Majumdar, p. 159.

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² Hundreds of seals have been discovered in various ancient sites in different parts of North India. They are mostly of clay and steatite, though some of them are of ivory and other objects including metal. Royal seals affixed to copper-plate grants for the purpose of authentication were made of bronze or copper. Some of the seals bear only emblems and others only legends, while the majority bear both emblems and legends. See Chapter V, § 6, below.

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Inscriptions may greatly vary in point of length. Sometimes an epigraph contains only a mark or one single word or expression, indicating the name of an individual, often a pilgrim at a holy religious establishment engraving his name on a wall or stone to commemorate his visit, or standing as the label of a sculptured scene from the epics or the Jātakas.¹ Somewhat longer inscriptions may record the dedication of the images of deities² or commemorate such events as the fall of a hero in battle or such curious social customs as the self-immolation of a widow⁴ and the head-offering of a devotee.⁵ In some cases, however, an inscription may embody a kāvya in many cantos or a drama in several acts. The Udaipur Rājasamudra inscription,⁶ called the Rājapraśasti-kāvya, falls in the first category, while the Ajmer Lalitavigraharāja and Harakeināṭaka inscriptions⁷ are instances of the second type. The Kudumiyamalai (Pudukottai, Madras State) inscription⁸ contains a unique seventh century work on musical notations.

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¹ Some of the Barhut inscriptions belong to this class. The marks and names of masons fall in the category of very small inscriptions.

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² See, e.g., Ancient India, No. 9, Plate CX, Nos. 1-2.

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⁴ Ibid., Plate CXII, No. 1.

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⁵ Ibid., Plate CXI, No. 1.

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⁶ Ep. Ind., Vols. XXIX-XXX, Appendix, pp. 1 ff.

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⁷ Ind. Ant., Vol. XX, pp. 201 ff.

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⁸ Ep. Ind., Vol. XII, pp. 226 ff.

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Epigraphic records may be broadly classified under two groups: (1) those engraved by or on behalf of the ruling authority, and (2) those incised on behalf of private individuals or organizations. The largest number of epigraphs of the second category record donations made in favour of religious establishments or installation of images for worship. They are usually incised on the object that were donated or installed, and are, as a rule, small. In some cases, however, they mention the king during whose reign the grant was made or the installation took place. Innumerable dedicatory inscriptions, big and small, are engraved on the walls, etc., of reputed religious establishments and centres of pilgrimage, such as the temples at Bhubaneswar, Draksharama, Srikurmam, Simhachalam, Srirangam, Kanchipuram, Lalgudi and other places.⁹ The majority of the donations recorded in these epigraphs were made by pilgrims, some of whom were kings, chiefs or royal officers. In certain cases, people are known to have made donations in favour of such temples in *absentia*.¹ Pilgrims visiting the temples in the course of pilgrimage often carried with them a written eulogy with a view to getting it engraved on a temple wall after having made the desired donations.²

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³ Loc. cit., No. 3, Plate CXI, No. 1.

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⁹ SII, Vol. IV, Nos. 99 ff. and 1006 ff.; Vol. V, Nos. 1150 ff.; Vol. VI, Nos. 678 ff. and 692 ff.; Ancient India, No. 9, Plate CVIII; etc.

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¹ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXI, pp. 100-01.

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² Cf. *ibid.*, Vol. XXXIII, p. 43, note 2.

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Eulogistic compositions, called *praśasti*, were sometimes composed and engraved on stone tablets or pillars to commemorate public works like the excavation of a tank or step-well or the construction of a temple by a royal or ordinary personage or a group of individuals. The ruler of the country is usually mentioned in such works composed on behalf of private persons or officials. Even private records, therefore, often offer valuable information for the reconstruction of political and cultural history as well as for other allied subjects such as topography. The Uttiramerur (Chingleput District, Madras) inscriptions³ throw very welcome light on the village administration in Southern India during the tenth century.

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³ *An. Rep. Arch. Surv. Ind.*, 1904-05, pp. 131 ff.

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By far the most important are, however, the records incised by or on behalf of the ruling authority. These inscriptions may be classified under such heads as: (1) royal edicts (e. g. the rock and pillar edicts⁴ of the Maurya emperor Aśoka), (2) epigraphs commemorating particular achievements of a king in a eulogistic *kāvya* or *praśasti*,⁵ (3) grants in favour of learned Brāhmaṇas, religious institutions or deserving individuals and officials, and (4) miscellaneous.

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⁴ Most of these edicts have several versions. There are also other cases of inscriptions having several versions. See *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 147 ff.

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⁵ The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradāman I and the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta fall in this class. See *Select Inscriptions*, pp. 169ff.; 254 ff. In later epigraphs, the word *praśasti* often occurs about the end of the records to indicate the composition. In some cases, the word *pūrvā* is used instead of *praśasti* and it has been suggested that *pūrvā* and *praśasti* are synonyms (cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, p. 123). But *pūrvā* really means ‘the above’, i.e. the above-quoted or above-mentioned thing in the feminine gender, and is often used with reference not only to *praśasti* but also to *tithi* or the lunar day. It has to be noticed that *pūrvā* is not recognised in the lexicons as a synonym of *praśasti* or *tithi*, even though it is very often found in epigraphic literature. The subject of the eulogies was generally called the *kīrti* of the person concerned. The word *kīrti* means ‘fame’, but is here used to indicate any performance (e.g., a temple, an image, a grant of land and the like) calculated to render the person responsible for it famous. The words *kīrtana* and *kīrtanā* are also sometimes used in the same sense. See *CII*, Vol. III, pp. 212-13, note; *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXVIII, p. 184; Vol. XXXIII, p. 170 (text line 2).

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Some of the epigraphic records, especially those of the eulogy type, were composed by poets of great ability and their compositions are of a high order. Mention may be made in this connection of Hariṣeṇa of the Allahabad pillar inscription (c. 360 A.D.)¹ of Samudragupta, Kubja of the Talagunda inscription (c. 460 A. D.)² of Śāntivarman, Vatsabhaṭṭi of the Mandasor inscription of 473 A.D.,³ Vāsula of the Mandasor inscription (c. 532 A.D.)⁴ of Yaśodharman, Ravikīrti of the Aihole inscription (634 A. D.)⁵ of Pulakeśin II, Chittapa of the Bhilsa inscription (c. 1050 A. D.),⁶ Vācaspati of the Bhubaneswar inscription (c. 1100 A. D.)⁷ of Bhavadeva-bhaṭṭa, and Umāpatidhara of the Deopada inscription (c. 1130 A. D.)⁸ of Vijayasena. Some of the authors of the epigraphic kāvyas are known only from the inscriptions, their other works being lost. It should be pointed out in this connection that private records were often composed by people of indifferent education and generally contain numerous errors of orthography and language. But epigraphs like the Chhoti Sadri inscription⁹ of Gauri and the Vasantgadh inscription¹⁰ of Pūrṇapāla show that sometimes even the Pandits at the kings' courts possessed very poor knowledge of the Sanskrit language.

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¹ Select Inscriptions, pp. 254 ff.

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² Ibid., pp. 450 ff.

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³ Ibid., pp. 288 ff.

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⁴ Ibid., 393 ff.

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⁵ Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, pp. 1 ff.

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⁶ Ibid., Vol. XXX, pp. 215 ff.

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⁷ Majumdar, Ins. Beng., Vol. III, pp. 25 ff.

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⁸ Ibid., pp. 35 ff.

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⁹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, pp. 120 ff.

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¹⁰ Ibid., Vol. IX, pp. 10 ff.

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The epigraphs recording royal grants of land were generally engraved on copper plates and there gradually developed a tendency to introduce in the copper-plate grants an elaborate eulogy of the donor and his ancestors. Fairly detailed information about a king and his ancestors is often found in the elaborate praśastis on stone or copper plates, which are therefore of inestimable value for the reconstruction of ancient and medieval Indian history, especially because most of the facts supplied by them are in many cases not known from any other source. But, as indicated above, private records also often offer valuable information for the reconstruction of political and cultural history and on allied subjects.

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Excluding coins and seals bearing legends which are not inscriptions in the real sense, the largest number of Indian epigraphic records belong to the category of stone inscriptions. Most of the early *praśastis* are incised on stone—rocks, tablets or pillars, though, in the later period, they were also incorporated in royal charters engraved on copper plates as already indicated above.

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A few words may be added here about certain characteristics of Indian inscriptions though we shall have occasion to discuss many of them in detail separately. At the beginning of an inscription generally and also at its end occasionally, there is an auspicious symbol or word or a passage in adoration to a deity. The word *siddham* and *svasti* at the beginning of inscriptions are commonly found, though *siddham* gradually came to be represented by a symbol found at the beginning of numerous inscriptions. Among other auspicious symbols, occasionally we have the *svastika*,¹ the trident-on-wheel called *triratna*,² the *śrīvatsa*,³ the tree-in-railing,⁴ and certain unidentified symbols⁵ in early inscriptions.⁶

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¹ ASSI, Vol. I, Plate 69; ASWI, Vol. IV, Plate 49, Nos. 5-7, 9, 11, 13-14, etc.

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² ASWI, Vol. IV, Plate 49, Nos. 8, 10, 15, etc. It is sometimes called *nandipada* (Rapson's Catalogue, p. clxxv).

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³ See this together with the *svastika* symbol at the beginning of the Hathigumpha inscription of Khāravela (*Select Inscriptions*, Plate facing p. 208).

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⁴ This occurs at the end of the Hathigumpha inscription (ibid., Plate facing p. 209).

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⁵ ASWI, Vol. IV, Plate 44—Bhaja No. 7; Plate 45—Kuda Nos. 1, 6, 16; Plate 46—Kuda Nos. 20, 22, 24, 26.

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⁶ See also *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, p. 247 and Plate facing p. 251.

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Generally separation of words or their groups is not observed in inscriptions. In certain cases, some letters are found to be separated from others; but this was done without any system and probably according to the will of the scribe or engraver. Often the end of an epigraph was indicated by punctuation marks and occasionally the end of a sentence or section or the first or second half of a stanza was also likewise marked. At the end of a section, sometimes we have the representation of a lotus,¹ a floral design,² a circle³ and other symbols.⁴ In the upper part of a number of medieval inscriptions, there are such representations as the Śiva-liṅga, Nandin (Śiva's bull), a cow-with-calf, sun and moon, etc. Only in some cases an omission was indicated by a cross or kākapāda (or haṃsapāda) symbol and the omitted letter or letters were engraved in the margin.⁵ Letters wrongly engraved were occasionally erased by chiselling or the cancellation was indicated by one or more strokes.⁶

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¹ Ep. Ind., Vol. XVIII, Plate facing p. 96.

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² Ibid., Vol. II, Plate facing p. 120, text line 33.

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³ See ibid., Vol. XIV, Plate facing p. 185.

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⁴ See, e.g., ibid., Vol. XXX, Plate facing p. 124, text line 17.

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⁵ See ibid., Vol. XII, Plate facing p. 12, text line 1; Vol. II, Plate facing p. 276, text lines 8, 11 and 20.

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⁶ See ibid., Vol. I, Plate facing p. 254, text lines 1, 5; Ind. Ant., Vol. XIX, Plate facing p. 58, text line 16.

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Often, the names of the author, the writer and the engraver of a record were mentioned.⁷ The dates of the epigraphs sometimes record the year [of the regnal reckoning of a ruler or of an era], season, month, day, fortnight, tithi, etc.⁸

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⁷ See, e.g., the Arthuna inscription (1080 A.D.) of Paramāra Cāmuṇḍarāja (Bhandarkar's List, No. 145), which was composed by the poet Candra, written by the Vālabhya-Kāyastha Āsarāja and engraved by Cāmuṇḍaka.

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⁸ See Ep. Ind., Vol. I, pp. 381 and 384; Vol. VIII, p. 42.

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The practice of engraving eulogies on pillars or tablets of stone and charters on copper plates was not popular with the foreigners professing Islam, who conquered wide areas of India during the medieval period. They were used to the writing of books on history and issued their many farmāns generally on paper. It was the Muhammadans who were responsible for the popularity of paper in India as a writing material. The increase in the popularity of the practice of writing on paper gradually led to the decline of the custom of engraving inscriptions on stone and copper. Another factor contributing to the decline is that the number of independent Hindu rulers, who would have followed the old convention, gradually became fewer and fewer. Indeed we have copper-plate charters issued by the kings of Tripura and Assam as late as the 18th century⁹ and the engraving of pilgrims' records at holy places is popular even today in accordance with the old custom. The final blow to the practice of incising eulogies on stone was delivered by the introduction of the printing press and to that of engraving charters on copper plates by the system of registering documents introduced by the British administration.

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⁹ See A. R. Ep., 1957-58, Nos. A 3-5.

2. Reconstruction of Early Indian History

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For the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, the study of inscriptions has a special importance. No doubt India contributed to the civilization of the world in all periods of history; but her more significant contributions to world culture were made in the early period. The study of early Indian history has, therefore, great importance to the student of the history of human civilization. Unfortunately, unlike Greece, Rome or China, ancient India has no history, because the Indians of antiquity did not care to leave written accounts of all their achievements. Ancient India did not produce a Herodotus, Thucydides or Tacitus to leave for posterity a genuine and comprehensive history of the achievements of her sons. Therefore, the information gathered from various sources, such as the literary, epigraphic, numismatic, archaeological and monumental records, has to be utilized to reconstruct this lost history of the most glorious days of India. Of all such sources for the reconstruction of early Indian history, epigraphic records are the most important, for they provided material for the major part of what we now know about the achievements of the Indians of old.

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Writing in 1839, Elphinstone observed in his famous *History of India* that in Indian history ‘no date of a public event can be fixed before the invasion of Alexander and no connected relation of the national transactions can be attempted until up to the Muhammadan conquest’.¹ In 1866 Cowell accepted the truth of Elphinstone’s dictum in regard to the whole of the so-called Hindu period of Indian history, for he pointed out that ‘it is only at those points where other nations came into contact with the Hindus that we are able to settle any details accurately.’¹ But the activities of a multitude of scholars working in the various branches of ancient Indian history led to the gradual discovery and accumulation of an unexpected wealth of material for its reconstruction. The achievements of ancient Indian rulers recorded in inscriptions on stone and copper plates were undoubtedly the most important of this.

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¹ Cf. M. Elphinstone, *History of India*, ed. E. B. Cowell, 5th ed. (London, 1866), p. 11.

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¹ Loc. cit.; cf. V. A. Smith, *E. Hist. Ind.*, 4th ed., 1924, p. 1.

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As early as 1837, the necessity of arranging epigraphical records systematically for the reconstruction of the ancient history of India was pointed out by James Prinsep, to whom goes the credit of first placing the study of Indian archaeology on a sound and critical foundation. Many inscriptions appeared in periodicals like the *Asiatic Researches* and the *Journal of the Asiatic Society* (both published by the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, established in 1784), the *Indian Antiquary* (started by J. Burgess in 1872) and others such as the *Madras Journal of Literature and Science*, the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* (London), the *Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society* and the *Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay*.² The creation of the post of Archaeological Surveyor by the Government of India in 1861 encouraged official and unofficial search for inscriptions and their study and publication.

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² For a short account of the early phase of epigraphical studies, especially in South India, see J. F. Fleet, *Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts*, 2nd ed. (Bombay, 1882), pp. ii ff. Between 1783 and 1821, Colin Mackenzie collected from various parts of the old Madras Presidency innumerable manuscripts together with transcripts of numerous inscriptions on stone and copper. Walter Elliot collected the impressions of a large number of inscriptions and published a paper on ‘Hindu Inscriptions’ in the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* (London), First Series, Vol. IV, pp. 1 ff., and its revised version later in the *Madras Journal of Literature and Science*, Vol. VII, pp. 193 ff. Manuscripts of his *Karnataka Désa Inscriptions*, Vols. I-II, are preserved in the library of the Edinburgh University and the Royal Asiatic Society, London. In 1885 the Mysore Government published a photographic collection of 150 inscriptions and next year Theodore Hope edited photographic copies of 64 inscriptions in a volume entitled *Inscriptions in Dharwar and Mysore*, for the Committee of Architectural Antiquities of Western India. Some more inscriptions were inserted by him in his *Architecture in Dharwar and Mysore*. A limited edition of these collections, edited by J. F. Fleet, was published in 1878 by the India Office under the title *Pali, Sanskrit and Old-Canarese Inscriptions from the Bombay Presidency and Parts of the Madras Presidency and Mysore*. In 1879 Rice published his *Mysore Inscriptions*. Later he published his *Inscriptions of Sravana-Belgola* and *Inscriptions in the Mysore District* and several volumes of the *Epigraphia Carnatica*.

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Out of the numerous epigraphic records discovered respectively till the seventies and eighties of the 19th century, Alexander Cunningham, the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1871-85)¹, collected those of Aśoka in a volume,² and J. F. Fleet edited the inscriptions of the Gupta age³ as Epigraphist to the Government of India (1883-86). E. Hultzsch, as Epigraphist to the Government of Madras (1886-1903), published the first volume of his *South Indian Inscriptions* in 1890.⁴ About a year earlier, J. Burgess, Cunningham's successor as Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, started an official journal entitled *Epigraphia Indica* exclusively for the publication of inscriptions.⁵

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¹ He earlier served as Archaeological Surveyor to the Government of India from the end of 1861 to 1865, when his Report on the Archaeological Survey, Vols. I-II were prepared. As Director General, he prepared Vols. III, V, IX-XI, XIV-XVII and XX-XXI of the said Reports. Vols. IV, VI-VIII, XII-XIII, XVIII-XIX and XXII-XXIV of the Reports were written by Cunningham's assistants under his guidance. See Sastri's edition of Cunningham's *Geography of Ancient India*, pp. liii-liv, and *Ancient India*, No. 9, pp. 10-11.

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² A Cunningham, *Inscriptions of Aśoka* (*CII*, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1877; revised edition, edited by E. Hultzsch, 1925).

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³ J. F. Fleet, *Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and their Successors* (*CII*, Vol. III, Calcutta, 1888). Vol. II, Part i, of the same series, edited by Sten Konow, was published in 1929 and Vol. IV, edited by V. V. Mirashi, in 1955. Several other volumes of the same type were published by non-official organisations in different parts of the country. Mention may be made of *Inscriptions of Bengal* (one volume edited by A K. Maitreya and another by N. G. Majumdar), *Varendra Research Society, Rajshahi*; P. N Bhattacharya's *Kāmarūpaśāsanāvali*, Rangpur Sāhitya Parishad; *Bhavnagar Inscriptions*; P.C. Nahar's *Jainalekhasamgraha*; etc.; also P. Sreenivasachar's *Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts*; A. S. Gadre's *Important Inscriptions of the Baroda State*, Vol. I; etc.

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⁴ Vol. II and Parts i-ii of Vol. III were also edited by Hultzsch, while Parts iii-iv of Vol. III, were edited by H. Krishna Sastri. The latest Volume of the series so far published is Vol. XIII.

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⁵ The first volume of *Epigraphia Indica* (completely published by 1892 although the first fasciculus appeared in October 1888) was edited by J. Burgess with the assistance of E. Hultzsch, Epigraphist to the Government of Madras, and A. Führer, Archaeological Surveyor, North-Western Province and Oudh. The second volume was also edited by Burgess assisted by Führer. After these two volumes, which were published as a sort of supplement to the *Corpus* volumes, the *Epigraphia Indica* became a regular periodical. The next four volumes (1894 to 1901) were edited by Hultzsch as Epigraphist to the Government of Madras, and the seventh and eighth ones (1902-1906), together with a few parts of the ninth (1907-1908), by the same scholar as Professor in the University of Halle, Germany. The later parts of the ninth volume were edited by Sten Konow as Government Epigraphist for India. Sten Konow's successor in the said post was Rao Bahadur V. Venkayya,

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The Government of Madras was publishing notices of inscriptions examined by its officers in an annual report from 1887 till 1921, the name of the publication being later changed to *Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy*. In half a century, nearly 25,000 inscriptions on temple walls and other monuments and about 500 copper-plate grants were reviewed in this periodical.¹ With the increase in the number of epigraphic records discovered and studied, several lists of inscriptions were published for the benefit of the students of history. The earliest such work is F. Kielhorn’s *Inscriptions of Northern India*, published in 1898-1899 as an Appendix to the *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. V.²

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¹ From 1945-46, the scope of the publication was widened and its name was changed to *Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy*.

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² The work as revised by D.R. Bhandarkar appeared as Appendix to the *Epigraphia Indica*, Vols. XIX-XXIII. Other lists of the kind are Kielhorn’s *Inscriptions of Southern India*, published as an Appendix to *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. VII; H. Lüders’ *List of Brāhmī Inscriptions*, published as an Appendix to *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. X; V. Rangacharya’s *Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency*, Vols. I-III, 1919; N. G. Majumdar’s *List of Kharoṣṭhī Inscriptions*, *JASB*, 1924; R. Sewell’s *The Daccan*, *BDCRI*, Vol. IX, 1947-48; C. R. K. Charlu’s *List of Inscriptions noticed in the Annual Reports and their Subject Index*; H. N. Dvivedi’s *Gvāliyar Rājyake Abhilekh*, etc.

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About the beginning of the present century, V. A. Smith published his celebrated work entitled *Early History of India*, in which an attempt to ‘sort and arrange the accumulated stores of knowledge’ in a somewhat connected account of the political and cultural history of ancient India was made for the first time. The book was revised and enlarged in subsequent editions published in 1908, 1914 and 1924, the last one appearing shortly after the author’s death. The importance of the discovery and study of new inscriptions in the reconstruction of ancient Indian history and the progress made year after year becomes perfectly clear from a comparative study of the successive editions of Smith’s work and H. C. Raychaudhuri’s *Political History of Ancient India* first published in 1923 and revised in 1927,

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followed eight years after his death (1912) by Rao Bahadur H. Krishna Sastri. During the interval between Venkayya’s death and Krishna Sastri’s appointment, some volumes and parts of the journal were edited from abroad by Sten Konow and F. W. Thomas. A volume of the journal consists of 8 parts published quarterly in 2 years. Its publication was stopped for several years during the Second World War. For the career of the *Epigraphia Indica*, see ibid., Vol. XXXIV (pertaining to the years 1961-1962), Appendix, pp. i ff.

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1931, 1938, 1950 and 1953. But, though much progress has been made, there are still innumerable gaps in the early period of Indian history, and numerous problems still await solution by further discoveries and studies.

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The work of the reconstruction of the early period of Indian history was inaugurated by European scholars in the 18th century. Later on, Indians also became interested in the subject. The credit for the decipherment of early Indian inscriptions, written in the Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī alphabets, which paved the way of epigraphical and historical studies in India, is due to scholars like Prinsep, Lassen, Norris and Cunningham. Indian epigraphic studies also owe a great debt to many other European savants like G. Bühler, E. Senart, F. Kielhorn, E. Hultzsch, L. Rice, W. Elliot, J.F. Fleet and L.D. Barnett as well as to Indian scholars like Bhagwanlal Indraji, R.L. Mitra, R.G. Bhandarkar, R. D. Banerji, P. N. Bhattacharya, D. R. Bhandarkar, H. P. Sastri, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri, N. G. Majumdar, N. P. Chakravarti and others. Amongst the above European scholars, the most outstanding contributions to Indian epigraphic studies are those of Bühler, Kielhorn, Fleet and Hultzsch. Among Indian epigraphists, the contributions of D.R. Bhandarkar and N. G. Majumdar are conspicuous while Venkayya and Krishna Sastri were good in dealing with South Indian inscriptions.¹

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¹ The study of inscriptions and coins formed the major and most important item of the archaeologists' work in India till the beginning of the 20th century. Even later, in the first quarter of the present century, when the study of excavated antiquities began to receive due attention, most officers of the Department of Archaeology, Government of India, were dealing with inscriptions and coins. This seems to be the reason why epigraphy, which in India is at least as great a subject as pure archaeology and is easily separable from the latter, was made the responsibility of a small branch of the Department while provision was not at all made for numismatics. The effect of this policy manifested itself in the following quarter of the century when more and more emphasis was laid by the Department on the study of prehistoric antiquities, so that the study of inscriptions came ultimately to be confined mainly to the Epigraphical Branch while the study of coins by the Departmental officers practically ceased. Indian epigraphical and numismatic studies would have thrived if the Government would have placed them in the charge of a separate Department of their own. There is a rumour that Hultzsch and Sten Konow resigned from the posts they held in the Department of Archaeology as a result of the said policy.

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The great part played by inscriptions, including legends on coins and seals, in the reconstruction of the history of ancient India can be demonstrated by an example. No imperial ruler named Budhagupta was known till the first quarter of the 19th century. A stone inscription mentioning Suraśmicandra, a viceroy of king Budhagupta, was discovered at Eran in the Sagar District of Madhya Pradesh in 1838.¹ The record, bearing a date in the Gupta year 165 corresponding to 484-85 A. D., states that Mātṛviṣṇu, ruler of Eran, was subordinate to Budhagupta’s viceroy governing a province lying between the rivers Kālindī (Yamunā) and Narmadā. Thus we came to learn that a king named Budhagupta held sway over the Malwa region in 484-85 A.D. Some silver coins of Budhagupta were discovered in 1894, and they were found to have been issued in the Gupta year 175 corresponding to 494-95 A. D.² It was thus further learnt that Budhagupta, king of Malwa, reigned for about ten years between 484 and 495 A.D. In 1914-15 two inscriptions belonging to Budhagupta’s reign were discovered at Sarnath near Banaras³ and were found to be dated in the Gupta year 157 (476-77 A. D.). Thus we came to learn that king Budhagupta was not a local ruler of the Malwa region, but that his dominions included considerably large portions of the U. P. It was also clear that he ruled not for about ten years but at least for about eighteen years between 476 and 495 A.D. The extension of Budhagupta’s dominions from Malwa in the west to Banaras in the east led to the suspicion that he might have belonged to the Imperial Gupta house of Magadha. This possibility was nearly proved in 1919-20, when two copper-plate inscriptions⁴ of the same king were found at Damodarpur in the Dinajpur District of North Bengal. These indicated the inclusion of the northern part of Bengal within the vast empire of Budhagupta. But, even then, we were in the dark about the exact position of Budhagupta in the genealogy of the Imperial Guptas of Magadha. In 1943, however, the study of the legend on a damaged clay seal⁵ of Budhagupta, discovered at Nalanda (Patna District, Bihar), proved that he was the son of Pūrugupta, grandson of Kumāragupta I Mahendrāditya, great-grandson of Candragupta II Vikramāditya and great-great-grandson of the mighty Samudragupta of the Imperial Gupta dynasty of Magadha. Thus, after the lapse of more than a century from 1838 to 1943, fairly complete information about the position of an ancient Indian monarch named Budhagupta was available to the students of early Indian history. Unfortunately, however, many facts associated with the reign of this ruler have still to be recovered. But this gathering of information bit by bit is of absorbing interest to all investigators in the field of Indian historical research. The students of Indian history, who studied the Eran inscription in 1838, Budhagupta’s coins in 1894, the Sarnath inscriptions in 1914-15, the Damodarpur plates in 1919-20 and the Nalanda seal in 1943, must have felt like ‘some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken.’

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¹ *CII*, Vol. III, pp. 88 ff.

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² J. Allan, *Catalogue of Coins of the Gupta Dynasties*, etc. (London, 1914), pp. lxii and 153.

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³ *An. Rep. Arch. Surv. Ind.*, 1914-15 (1920), p. 125.

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XV (1919-1920), pp. 134 ff.

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⁵ *IHQ*, Vol. XIX (1943), pp. 119 ff. and 272 ff.

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There is a popular belief that all important inscriptions have already been discovered and studied and utilised for the reconstruction of early Indian history. That this is a wrong notion is very clearly demonstrated by the articles appearing in the pages of the *Epigraphia Indica* during the past few years.¹

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¹ In the present quarter of the 20th century, circumstances have so developed that suitably qualified and serious students are not easily available for conducting research work in subjects like epigraphy mainly because they are attracted by other avenues of life. The study of Indian inscriptions and coins is no longer popular among European scholars.

3. Historical Perspective

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Fleet observed, “It is indeed very questionable whether the ancient Hindus ever possessed the true historical sense in the shape of the faculty of putting together genuine history on broad and critical lines.”² A study of such epigraphs as the Hathigumpha inscription³ (first century B. C.) of Khāravela, Junagadh rock inscription⁴ (150 A. D.) of Rudradāman, Aihole inscription⁵ (634 A. D.) of Pulakeśin II and official records of such royal families as the Coḷas, Eastern Cālukyas and Imperial Eastern Gaṅgas side by side with chronicles like Kalhaṇa’s *Rājatarangiṇī* (c. 1150 A.D.) and works like Bāṇa’s *Harṣacarita* (first quarter of the 7th century) and Bilhaṇa’s *Vikramāṅkadevacharita* (close of the 11th century) would suggest that the observation can only be regarded as partially justifiable.

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² *Imp. Gaz. Ind.*, Vol. II, p. 5.

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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XX, pp. 71 ff.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, Vol. VIII, pp. 36 ff.

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⁵ *Ibid.*, Vol. VI, pp. 1 ff.

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It has to be remembered in this connection that many inscriptions as well as literary works of a historical character are lost. We know that, of no less than twelve chronicles dealing with the ancient history of Kashmir, including the works of Nilamuni, Helārāja, Chavillākara, Padmamihira, Suvrata and Kṣemendra (11th century), which were available to Kalhaṇa in the 12th century, only a part of Nilamuni’s chronicle has so far been discovered. It is well known that the Indian climate is not favourable for the preservation of manuscripts, written on leaves, birch-bark sheets and similar other perishable materials. Even first rate dramas of poets like Rāmila and Saumilla, which were widely popular in the days of Kālidāsa (4th-5th century A.D.), have not come down to us. Fortunately some of the documents were engraved on lasting materials like stone and metal and a large number of these has been discovered.

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It is clear from the reference to numerous earlier chronicles in the *Rājatarangiṇī* (12th century) that works dealing with the activities of the ancient kings of Kashmir began to be written at a very early date, long before the secluded vale came into close contact with history-minded foreigners like the Musalmans. That chronicles at least of the *Vaṃśāvali* type were prepared and preserved at the courts of various royal families ruling over other parts of India is also suggested by several factors. In the 11th century, Al Bīrūnī referred to the ‘pedigree’ of the Śāhīs of Afghanistan and North-Western Bhāratavarṣa, written on silk, which is stated to have been preserved at the fortress of Nagarkot in the Punjab. What he says about the Śāhīs seems to indicate that this was a dynastic account of the Śāhī kings from the foundation of Kuṣāṇa power about the beginning of the Christian era down to the fall of the Brāhmaṇa Śāhīs in the 11th century. From about the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., official charters of most of the imperial families ruling over various parts of India began to incorporate historical accounts from their foundation to the date of the records. In many cases, such an account covers several centuries and it is impossible to believe that it could have been prepared without the help of earlier written records. It has to be noticed, for instance, that the reference to the 18 years' duration of Kubja-Viṣṇuvardhana's rule is found only in the Eastern Cālukya charters of the time of his distant descendants who ruled three centuries later.¹ That the practice of preparing dynastic annals was popular from very old times is suggested by the inclusion of many such accounts of ancient ruling families in the Purāṇas. It is well known that the Puranic *Vaṃśavalis* quote the names of the rulers of a family in a chronological order often with the duration of the rule of each king and his relation with his predecessor. Achievements of particular monarchs (e. g. the foundation of the city of Puṣpapura or Pāṭaliputra by Udayin of Magadha during the fourth year of his reign)² are mentioned only occasionally. Kālidāsa's *Raghuvamśa*, which is essentially a chronicle of the traditional rulers of the Ikṣvāku house, based on legends and dynastic accounts as those contained in the Purāṇas, would, however, suggest that the composition of bigger chronicles on the achievements of imperial families was not quite unknown or unpopular in ancient India.

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¹ Cf. *SII*, Vol. I, p. 39, text lines 6-7.

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² Cf. *Vāyu Purāṇa*, ch. 99, verse 319.

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While describing the ideal historian in his *Rājatarangiṇī*,³ Kalhaṇa pays homage to the genius of a gifted poet, which immortalises the glory of the author as well as the subject of his narration and without which it is impossible to vivify before the reader's eyes the events of the bygone age. It is further said that the poet should possess divine perception so as to be able to show, through intuition, his awareness of the existences he is going to reveal to his readers. Above all, Kalhaṇa praises the poet of merit whose language, like that of the judge, has discarded love and hatred, i.e. bias or prejudice, in recounting he events of the past. The qualities of a historian emphasised here are the ability to see the facts in their proper perspective by linking one of them with others by means of intuition and to describe them in a pleasant and impartial manner so that the narrative becomes intelligible and agreeable to the readers and the presentation of facts true to the author's knowledge and belief. Kalhaṇa's conception of history may fall short of the modern western stadards; but the concluding sections of the Rājatarangiṇī would hardly suffer from a comparison with earlier historical works written in different parts of the world, especially those of the contemporary Muslim chroniclers.

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³ I, verses 4 ff.

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The author of the Rājatarangiṇī¹ had before him no less than twelve works of earlier authors; but he justifies his attempt to write a new chronicle by pointing out that the earlier works were defective, apparently because their authors did not strictly follow the principles postulated and followed by him. The sources consulted by Kalhaṇa to free his own composition from mistakes are referred to in a stanza saying, "By a scrutiny of the ordinances of former kings regarding religious foundations and grants, laudatory inscriptions as well as written records, all wearisome errors have been set at rest." Similarly, the author of the Kumbhalgadh inscription² of 1450 A.D. had before him both written and oral traditions of the Rajput bards, although he claims to quote the genealogy of the kings of Mewar after having examined numerous old inscriptions of the praśasti type. These authors therefore utilised epigraphic evidence for checking the details of the chronicles, as historians have to do in other countries for which written history is available. Unfortunately, modern writers on the early history of most parts of India are not as fortunate as the authors of the Rājatarangiṇī and the Kumbhalgadh inscription were. No early work even of the type of bardic chronicles is available for most of the other areas of India. Historians therefore have to depend often almost entirely on informations supplied by inscriptions, including legends on coins and seals.

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¹ I, verses 9 ff.

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² Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIV, p. 324.

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We have no doubt what may be called historical *kāvyas* on the careers of some ancient Indian monarchs, such as Bāṇa’s *Harṣacarita* on the early life of the Puṣyabhūti king Harṣavardhana (606-47 A. D.) of Thanesar and Kanauj, Sandhyākarana-ndin’s *Rāmacarita* on the career of Rāmapāla (c. 1077-1120 A.D.) of Eastern India and Bilhaṇa’s *Vikramānkadevacarita* on the life of Cālukya Vikramāditya VI (1076-1126 A.D.) of Kalyāṇa. But the number of such works so far discovered is meagre. Another class of semi-historical works is represented by Viśākhadatta’s dramas, *Mudrārākṣasa* (on the life of Candragupta Maurya, c. 322-298 B.C.) and *Devīcandragupta* (on the career of the Gupta emperor Candragupta II, 376-414 A. D.), written in the 6th or 7th century A.D. Unfortunately, not only is their number few, but, in the absence of corroborative evidence from other sources, it is often extremely difficult to distinguish their historical substratum from imaginary elements. Kālidāsa’s *Mālavikāgnimitra*, Bhāsa’s *Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa*, etc., are similar works written on the bases of historical traditions, although they obviously contain a good deal of what is legendary and imaginary. But even such compositions are not many. More important from the historian’s point of view are casual references to historical personages and events in works like Patañjali’s *Mahābhāṣya*, Rājaśekhara’s *Viddhaśālabhañjikā*, *Bālabhārata* (*Pracaṇḍa-Pāṇḍava*), etc., and others. Works of the type of Pampa’s *Vikramārjunavijaya* (Kannaḍa), and Jayaṅkoṇḍan’s *Kaliṅkattuparaṇi* (Tamil) dealing with the achievements of the Coḷa-cālukya king Kulottuṅga I (1070-1120 A. D.) are of some importance.

4. Merits of Epigraphical Evidence

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The great importance of inscriptions lies in the fact that they generally offer information about personages and events of Indian history, about which nothing is known from any other source. Only in some cases, we have recorded traditions about such subjects, the details of which can be compared with epigraphic information. Such a comparison very often shows that the details of the traditions are mostly wrong. There are cases of a personage or an event or a subject being merely referred to vaguely in some source and inscriptions clothing them with interesting details.

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Among the merits of epigraphic records as a source of Indian history, the foremost is the fact that their authors in most cases described contemporary events. In describing the ancestors of his royal patron, the court poet had sometimes to deal with past events and personages. But the material for the description of events of the near past was easily available to him. As regards the distant past, sometimes he depended on recorded or unrecorded tradition. There are also instances (e. g. in the Kumbhalgadh inscription) to show that the author of an epigraphic record tried to ascertain the correct facts with the help of old documents either in his patron’s archives or elsewhere. The author of the Junagadh inscription of 150 A. D., while recounting the early history of the Sudarśana lake, says that it was created by Rāṣṭriya Puṣyagupta during the reign of Candragupta Maurya (c. 322-298 B. C.), and that Yavanarāja Tuṣāspha endowed it with irrigation canals on behalf of Aśoka Maurya (c. 272-232 B.C.). It appears that some genuine records about the lake, belonging to the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C., were available for consultation to the author of the Junagadh inscription in 150 A.D.

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As already indicated above, from the early medieval period, inscriptions of the imperial families generally incorporated a historical account of the particular dynasties from their foundation down to the date of the records. The Aihole inscription of 634 A.D. gives a fairly clear and trustworthy, if not satisfactorily elaborate, account of the rise and early history of the Cālukyas of Bādāmi covering a period of about one century. The story begins with Jayasiṃha-vallabha, founder of the Cālukya dynasty, and his son Raṇarāga. Raṇarāga’s son Pulakeśin I, who made Vātāpipurī his capital, established the greatness of the family by performing an Aśvamedha sacrifice. His son and successor Kirtivarman I subdued neighbouring powers like the Nalas, Mauryas and Kadambas. He was succeeded by his younger brother Maṅgaleśa who extended his power in the north by conquering Revatidvīpa and defeating the Kalacuri king Buddharāja. His attempt to appoint his own son as his successor led to a civil war between the king and his nephew Pulakeśin II, son of Kīrtivarman I. The whole kingdom fell into a chaotic condition; but ultimately Pulakeśin II succeeded in killing his uncle and gaining the throne. Soon after his accession, Pulakeśin II had to face the invading forces of Appāyika and Govinda who had reached as far as the northern bank of the Bhīmarathī. He succeeded in winning over Govinda and driving out Appāyika. Next, in the south, he subdued the Kadambas of Vanavāsī on the Varadā and their neighbours like the Gaṅgas and Āḷupas and, in the north, the Lāṭas, Mālavas and Gurjaras. Then he defeated Harṣa in the region of the Revā (Narmadā) and became the undisputed lord of the three Mahārāṣṭras. Later, in the course of a digvijaya in the east, he subdued [South] Kosala and Kaliṅga, conquered Piṣṭapura and Lake Kuṇāla and defeated the Pallava king of Kāñcī. He next crossed the Kāverī, made friends with the Coḷas, Pāṇḍyas and Keralas, and defeated the Pallavas once again before his return to Vātāpi.

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This account of early Cālukya history by the author of the Aihole inscription may be compared with many similar accounts of various imperial families (e.g. the Pālas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas and others) found in their epigraphic records. It has to be noticed that the treatment of the subject in the inscriptions is not as elaborate as in works like the Rājatarangiṇī. This is mainly because their space was considerably limited. Often the authors of inscriptions had to recount the history of several centuries for being engraved only on a few copper plates. Another defective feature of the account is that, although the Aihole inscription quotes the date of its incision on the occasion of the construction of a Jain temple as the Kali year 3735 corresponding to Śaka 556, it gives no date for any of the past events described nor does it quote the duration of the reign of any of the past rulers. Such defects are, however, less prominent in the official charters of some other families. Thus the grants of the Eastern Cālukyas quote the reign-period of each of the past rulers in some cases in years, months and days,¹ while those of the Eastern Gaṅgas quote, in addition to the reign-periods of most of the rulers in years only, the exact date of the coronation of a few of the issuer's predecessors.²

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¹ Cf. SII, Vol. I, pp. 39 ff., 44 ff., 47 ff., 53 ff.

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² See, e.g., Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, pp. 235 ff.

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Another important characteristic of inscriptions is that their texts are generally free from variant readings as they were not usually liable to modification like those of literary works which were copied and recopied by people in later times. Casual references to historical events or personages found in epigraphic records are generally more useful than similar mention in literary works. This is because such works are usually known from late copies and the date of their composition is very often uncertain while an inscription can be assigned to a definite period on palaeographic grounds even when it does not bear a date in any era.

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Although Kalhaṇa's extraordinary impartiality in describing the events of the reign of the contemporary king Jayasiṁha and of the latter's father and uncle cannot be expected in the official praśastis composed by court poets, some inscriptions are known to describe facts which could not have been quite palatable to the patrons of the authors. Attention in this connection may be drawn to the later charters of the Cālukyas of Bādāmi (such as the Kendur plates)³ describing Cālukya Vijayāditya having been captured by the enemies as well as to the Dubi plates⁴ of the Bhauma king Bhāskaravarman of Prāgjyotiṣa giving a vivid description of the discomfiture and capture of the brothers Supratiṣṭhitavarman and Bhāskaravarman, soon after the death of their father, by the Gauḍa invaders who carried off the princes to their own country and released them afterwards apparently on their acceptance of Gauḍa supremacy.

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³ Ibid., Vol. IX. p. 200.

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⁴ Ibid., Vol. XXX, pp. 287 ff.

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An important feature of epigraphic evidence is that many of the knotty problems of early Indian chronology have been solved by inscriptions dated in eras. Of course the use of popular eras in the dating of documents was originally unknown in India and even royal charters used to be dated in the regnal reckoning of the kings who issued them. But the Vikrama Saṃvat of 58 B. C. was introduced by the Scytho-Parthians and the Śaka era of 78 A. D. by the Kuṣāṇas and there are numerous inscriptions dated in these eras as well as others introduced later (e.g. the Traikūṭaka-Kalacuri era of 248 A.D., the Gupta-Valabhī era of 319 A.D., the Eastern Gaṅga era of about 497 A.D., the Harṣa era of 606 A.D., the Bhauma-Kara era of about 831 A.D., the Cālukya-Vikrama era of 1076 A.D., etc.).

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There are some inscriptions mentioning past events with reference to particular dates. Thus an inscription¹ from Mandasor tells us how a temple of the Sun-god was built in the said locality in [Vikrama] Saṃvat 493 (436 A.D.), Pauṣa-sudi 13, when Bandhuvarman was ruling over the area as a feudatory of the Gupta emperor Kumāragupta I and how the same temple was repaired in [Vikrama] Saṃvat 529 (473 A.D.), Phālguna-sudi 2. Of course, in areas where the use of an era was not popular, a past event was usually associated with the regnal reckoning of bygone monarchs. Thus the Madras Museum plates² of the 16th regnal year of Uttama-coḻa refer to two earlier events respectively of the 22nd regnal year of Parakesarin (Parāntaka I) and the 9th regnal year of Kampavarman.

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¹ CII, Vol. III, p. 81.

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² SII, Vol. III, p. 264 ff.

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We have also inscriptions containing a record of events happening at different dates arranged in a chronological order. The Siron Khurd (Siyādoṇī) inscription³ in 46 lines records twentyseven donations made at different dates between Vikrama Saṃvat 960 and 1025 by some subordinates and subjects of the Gurjara Pratihāra emperors of Kanauj in favour of the Brahmanical deities worshipped at the locality. Some of the records of these donations are undated while a few of the dated records refer to the reigns of the Gurjara Pratihāra monarchs. But there is little doubt that the records were arranged in strict chronological order. The dates, Vikrama Saṃvat 960 (903 A.D.) and 964 (907 A.D.), are associated with the reign of Mahendrapāla, successor of Bhoja, and Vikrama Saṃvat 1005 (948 A.D.) with that of Devapāla, successor of Kṣitipāla. The inscription was drawn up by people who were apparently endowed with a sense of chronological order. Similarly, in the Nagari plates¹ of Eastern Gaṅga Anaṅabhīma III (c. 1211-38 A.D.), we have not only an account of the predecessors of the donor for many generations together with the duration of their rules and the date of the coronation of one of them in the Śaka era, but also the description of seven grants made by the king within a period of about one year quoting the exact date of each one of them.

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