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

26 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
logical Report, which, originally printed in 1863 as a supplement to the Journal of the
Bengal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXXII. pp. iii. to cxix., was in 1871 reprinted, with the
addition of Plates, as Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. I., in which the inscription is noticed on
p. 237.—Subsequently, in 1873, in the Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. III. p. 37, and Plate xvi.
No. 24, he published a reduced lithograph of it, shewing the completion of the lines as
arranged by him.
The inscription is on a red-sandstone fragment, about 10" broad by 11½" high, cracked
across the lower proper right corner, which was found, with its face downwards, forming
part of the pavement immediately outside the Katrâ¹ gateway at **Mathurâ,**² the chief town
of the Mathurâ District in the North-West Provinces. The original stone is now in the
Provincial Museum at Lâhôr.
The writing, which covers the entire front of the stone, about 10" broad by 11½" high,
is in a state of very fair preservation. It is only a fragment; the first line has been almost
entirely destroyed, and an indefinite number of lines have been entirely broken away and lost
at the bottom of the stone; and, in addition to this, from one to nine aksharas have been
broken away and lost at the commencement of the lines, and from one to five at the ends
of the lines, except in lines 8 and 9.—The size of the letters varies from ⅜" to ¾". The
characters belong to the northern class of alphabets. They are of radically the same
stock with those of the Allâhâbâd posthumous pillar inscription of Samudragupta, No. 1
above, but with several essential differences in details; the most noticeable of these are
(1) the very marked curve in the left downward stroke of m, which I have noticed, at page 3
above, as belonging originally to an earlier form of this letter than that which occurs in the
Allâhâbâd inscription; (2) a slanting straight stroke, instead of a circular loop, at the
bottom of the left downward stroke of s; and (3) the formation of the lower part of h en-
tirely to the right, instead of its sloping downwards only slightly to the right and then
turning up very markedly to the left.—The language is Sanskrit; and the extant portion
of the inscription is in prose throughout.—The orthography does not present anything
calling for remark.
The inscription is one of the Early Gupta king Chandragupta II. His name
does not occur in the portion that is extant. But the instrumental case putrêṇa in line 9,
immediately after the mention, in the genitive case, of Samudragupta, shews that the
genealogy was continued down to, and ended with, his son and chosen successor, whose
name came in line 11 or 12, and who is known from the subsequent records to have been
Chandragupta II.; and that the subject of the inscription was an act of the latter. The
date of the inscription, if any was recorded, and the subject of it, were in the portion that
has been broken away and lost.
**TEXT.**³
1 . . . . . . [Sarvva-râj-ôchhêttuḥ prithiv]y[âm=apratiratha]-
2 [sya chatur-udadhi-sali]l-âsvâdita-ya[śasô Dha]-
3 [nada-Varuṇ-Êndr-Ântaka-sa]masya Kṛitânta-[paraśôḥ]
4 [nyây-âgat-ânêka-gô]-hiraṇya-kôti-prada[sya chir-ô]-
¹ katrâ is the common word used in that part of the country for ‘an enclosed market-place.’
² The ‘Matra, Muthra, and Muttra,’ of maps, &c. Indian Atlas, Sheet No. 50. Lat. 27° 30′ N.;
Long. 77° 43′ E.
³ From the original stone.—The passages that have been broken away are supplied from the
Allâhâbâd posthumous pillar inscription of Samudragupta, No. 1, lines 24, 26, 28, and 29, page 8 above,
and from lines 1 to 4 of the Bhitarî pillar inscription of Skandagupta, No. 13 below, Plate vii.