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

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS; No. 1, PLATE I. 3

excellent preservation, and is decipherable without the slightest doubt from beginning to
end.—The size of the letters (by which I mean, here and throughout, the height of such
letters as cha, da, pa, ma, ba, va, &c., which are formed entirely within the limits of, so
to speak, the lines of writing, without any projections above or below) varies from ⁷/₁₆" to
¼". As regards the palæography of this and the other inscriptions in the volume, this
division of the subject is so extensive as to require a separate treatise to itself; and I can-
not here do more than touch in a general way on such special points as call for particular
notice. The characters of the present inscription belong to what it has been customary to
call the Gupta Alphabet. This, however, like all other similar dynastic appellations, is an
unsatisfactory and misleading term. In the first place, these characters were not confined
to the inscriptions of the Early Gupta dynasty; for they were used, with slight modifica-
tions, but not such as to affect their essential nature, on the coins of the later Indo-
Scythian kings of the Pañjâb. Even in respect of a character of such leading importance
as the letter m,—though some of these coins exhibit what is called the Indo-Scythic
form,¹ in distinction from the m of the northern Gupta inscriptions, yet, on one coin which I
had the advantage of examining in General Cunningham's collection, and which has on it
the name of Samudra,² the m that is used is the so-called Gupta m, somewhat later
than the m of the present inscription, but of exactly the same shape with the m of
mahârâja in line 8 (to choose a clear example) of the Mathurâ inscription of Chandra-
gupta II., No. 4 below, Plate iiiA. And in the second place, the inscriptions of the Early
Guptas themselves were by no means written exclusively in this alphabet. To say nothing
of the frequent use of the Indo-Scythic m on Samudragupta's coins,—illustrated, for

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¹ Setting aside the few exceptional instances that we have of irregular usage, confined, I think,
entirely to coins, this letter is in itself sufficient to shew, for the whole period covered by the
inscriptions in this volume, whether the characters of a particular record belong to the northern or to the
southern class of alphabets. The m of the Indo-Scythic inscriptions, a good representation of which
may be seen in the word mahârâjasya at the beginning of the Mathurâ inscription of Huvishka of the
year 39 (Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. III. Pl. xiv. No. 1), is simply a stiff angular development of the m
of the Aśôka period. This particular form was not confined, however, to the Indo-Scythian records.
We have it, in all its angularity, in the word svâmi in the Sâñchi pillar inscription, No. 73 below, Plate
xliiA.; and, with very little modification, in the early inscriptions from Nâsik and that neighbourhood
published in the Archæol. Surv. West. Ind. Vol. IV. Plates xliv. ff. And in the slightly modified form,
with simply the angles rounded off, which it must have had in the earliest stages of development of the
southern alphabets, we have it throughout the Sâñchi inscription of Chandragupta II., No. 5 below,
Plate iiiB., e.g. in mahâvihârê, line 1; the Gaṅgdhâr inscription of Viśvavarman, No. 17 below, Plate x.,
e.g. in appratimêna, line 4; and the Mandasôr inscription of Kumâragupta and Bandhuvarman, No. 18
below, Plate xi., e.g. in bhavanam=idam=udâraṁ, line 23. While, in a more modified form, which
must have been of later development, though the instances in this volume happen to be of earlier date,
we have it throughout the Êraṇ inscription of Samudragupta, No. 2 below, Plate ii.A, e.g. in samara,
line 21; and throughout the Udayagiri cave inscription of Chandragupta II. of the year 82, No. 3 below,
Plate iiB., e.g. in mahârâja, at the beginning of line 2.—The m of the inscription now under notice
must also be simply a development of the Aśôka m, arrived at by forming the left part of the letter in
a different way, viz. by one unbroken movement, leading gradually to its being separated entirely from
the right part, which then eventually assumed a straight form, instead of curved. And, though the
instances in this volume happen to be of later date, undoubtedly the form that we have in, for
instance, mahârâja, in line 8 of the Mathurâ inscription of Chandragupta II., No. 4 below, Plate iiiA.,
must have preceded the form used in the inscription now under notice.
² The three components of the name are written one above the other, inside the spear and under
the left arm of the king, on the obverse; and they are practically identical with the components of the
same name on the coin of Samudragupta given by Mr. V. A. Smith in Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. LIII.
Part I. Pl. ii. No. 6.

B 2.