गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS; APPENDIX IV. 187
ful; but the second is as distinctly ta, not tâ, as is in fact shewn in the lithograph. There
is a slight abrasion mark between the ta and the following akshara, which does not appear
in the lithograph; but the rubbing shews most distinctly that this mark is no remnant of
a half-obliterated â, and that the stroke for â, for which in fact there is no room, never was
engraved here The reading of the original, in short, is jâtas, the nominative singular;
not jâtâs, the nominative plural. This is the first objection to the more serious error, the
introduction of trayôdaśa, 'thirteen,' immediately after jâtas. The second is, that, of the
six following aksharas which are read s=trayôdaśa [tata], the only parts that can be pro-
nounced on with any certainty, are s, as part of the first, and, at the beginning of line 11,
da, the third, which is well preserved and unmistakable. The others are hopelessly injured
and unrecognisable; and,—with the exception that the first probably had a t below the s;
and that the second looks more like thâ (tathâ), or dâ (tadâ), or pô (tapô), than yô,—it is
quite impossible, even from the rubbing, to say what they may be. But the culminating
and final objection to the reading of trayôdaśa [tata]ś=cha is, that, in the passage, as thus
read, there is no such word as vyatîtya, vihâya, hitvâ, or tyaktvâ, "having passed over or
omitted (to mention the names of)," which we have in lines 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9, where, in each
case, a specified number of kings is passed over; and that the metre does not allow of our
introducing any such word. The lacunæ at the end of line 10 and the beginning of line 11
render it, as I said, impossible to decide what the original reading may have been. But the
whole structure of the passage leaves no doubt whatever that the original contained nothing
but an epithet, or perhaps two, of Narêndradêva; and that, so far from thirteen rulers
having intervened between him and Udayadêva, he was the son of Udayadêva.
Narêndradêva's son was Śivadêva II. (line 12), who married Vatsadêvî, of the family
of the Maukharis who abounded in strength of arm,¹ the daughter of the illustrious
Bhôgavarman, and the daughter of the daughter of "the great" Âdityasêna, the lord of
Magadha (l. 13). And their son was the Râja, the illustrious Jayadêva II. (l. 14), also
called Parachakrakâma (l. 18), whose wife was Râjyamatî, of the family of king Bhagadatta
or of the Bhagadatta kings (l. 16), the daughter of Harsha, king of Gauḍa, Ôḍra; &c., and
Kaliṅga, and Kôsala (l. 15). The rest of the inscription details the beauty of the silver
water-lily which Jayadêva II. caused to be made, and how it was worshipped and installed
by his mother Vatsadêvî; and then concludes with the date.
Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji's acceptance of Udayadêva as the successor of Vasantadêva,
and insertion of thirteen rulers between him and Narêndradêva, led of necessity to the
reference of the dates for Mânadêva of (K.) 386 and (M.) 413, and for Vasantadêva of
(P.) 435, to the Vikrama era. It is unnecessary to repeat his calculations in full. But,
starting with fifteen names between Vasantadêva and Śivadêva II., or nineteen from Mâna-
¹ The original has dêvî vâ(bâ)hu-va(ba)l-âḍhya-Maukhari-kulâ śrîvarmma &c.; not kula-śrî-
varmma, in composition, as in the published text.
3 2b