Indian Epigraphy c6.s2: 2. Reconstruction of Early Indian History
Indian Epigraphy c6.s2
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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.