Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c11.29

c11.29

¹⁷ Dr Bühler (Arch Surv of West Ind, Vol IV, p 110,) supposes me to have rested my conclusion as regards this point on this statement alone, and calls it a mistake But he will find my other reasons also stated in the remarks at the end of my article in the Transactions of the Oriental Congress of 1874. And even this statement has a very high corroborative value. For, if the object of the writer was to represent Gotamî's "special claim" to honour, that is better served by supposing that her son and grandson were great kings at one and the same time. Every queen belonging to a dynasty in power is the mother of a king and grandmother of a king, and there is nothing special in the fact if the son and the grandson bore the title at different times. If the son was dead, no object is gained as regards this point by saying she was the mother of that son that is not gained by saying she was the grandmother of a *living* great king. And if it was a fact that Gotamîputra was dead when the cave temple was dedicated and Puḷumâyi alone was reigning, we should expect to find the exploits of the latter also celebrated in the inscription, but there is not a word in praise of him. If Puḷumâyi became king only after Gotamîputra, the latter must have died nineteen years before the dedication of the temple, and it certainly is not what one acquainted with the manner and motive of Hindu inscription-writers would expect that a king who had been dead for nineteen years should be highly extolled in the inscription and the reigning king altogether passed over in silence.