The Age of the Imperial Guptas c5.7

c5.7

The writer is indebted to Mr. D. B. Diskalkar, M.A., Curator, of the Mathura Museum for the following information regarding an inscription of Candragupta II discovered in a garden near the Hardinge Gate of Mathura city by Rai Bahadur Pandit Radha Krishna, the practical founder of the Mathura Museum and his nephew Pandit Bhola Nath. The record is inscribed on a small stone pillar square in section at the bottom but octagonal in the middle. The inscription covers five out of eight faces of the octagonal shaft and consists of seventeen lines. It is damaged in different parts, the most regrettable damage being to the part which bore the date in regnal years, as this is the only inscription of the early Gupta emperors, which was dated both in the Gupta era and in a regnal year. The inscription is Śaiva and on one side of the pillar is to be found a naked figure of a Śivagaṇa (which Mr. Diskalkar takes to be that of Bhairava).