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

30                          CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
gateway of the Great Stûpa.¹ The inscription is very well preserved, with the exception
that two or three letters are destroyed and quite illegible near the commencement of each
line as far as line 8.—The average size of the letters is ⅝". The characters belong to the
southern class of alphabets, and approximate most closely to, in the present volume, those
of the Mandasôr inscription of Kumâragupta and Bandhuvarman, No. 18 below, Plate xi.,
and, elsewhere, those of the Aihoḷe Mêguṭi inscription² of the Western Chalukya king
Pulikêśin II. of Śaka-Saṁvat 556 (A.D. 634-35). They include, in line 11, forms of the
numerical symbols for 3, 4, and 90.—The language is Saṁskṛit; and the inscription
is in prose throughout.—In respect of orthography, the only point that calls for notice
is the use of the dental s, instead of the visarga or the upadhmanîya, in conjunction with
p, in yaśas-patâka, line 4.
The inscription refers itself to the reign of the Early Gupta king Chandragupta
II. Its date, in numerical symbols, is the year³ ninety-three (A.D. 412-13), on the fourth
day, without any specification of the lunar fortnight, of the month Bhâdrapada (August-
¹ Stûpa, 'a heap or pile of earth; any heap or pile or mound,' is the technical name of a
certain kind of Buddhist monument, consisting of a mound, more or less elaborate, and with or
without masonry work, erected over sacred relics of Buddha and his followers.—The English cor-
ruption, Tope, is from the Prâkṛit form thûpa.—In the country round Sâñchi, I found the popular
term for a Stûpa to be bîṭâ (Hindî, bîṭaurâ), which means literally 'a heap of dried cowdung-cakes
to be used as fuel.' The great Stûpa at Sâñchi is known as Sâs-bahû kâ bîṭâ, "the heap of dried
cowdung-cakes of the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law." And with this name we may
compare Sâs-bahû kâ dêhrâ, "the temple of the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law," which is
the popular name of the temple at Gwâlior in which there is the long Sanskrit inscription of the
Kachchhapaghâta prince Mahîpâla, dated Vikrama-Saṁvat 1150 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XV. p. 33 ff.)
² Ind. Ant. Vol. VIII. p. 241 ff., and the accompanying plate.
³ The text has the abbreviation saṁ, which may stand either for the crude form saṁvatsara, 'a
year,' or for any declensional case that can be used in expressing a date (see page 22 above, note
5). The same remark applies to the form saṁvat, which occurs, for instance, in saṁvat 100 90 1
Śrâvaṇa ba di 7, in line 2 of the Êraṇ posthumous pillar inscription of Gôparâja, No. 20 below, Plate
xiiB.—It was formerly thought that the word saṁvat was used only in connection with the Vikrama
era commencing B.C. 57. But fuller experience has shewn that both the forms are used freely in
respect of the years of any era whatsoever.—They are used sometimes by themselves, as in the present
passage, and in the instance quoted above for saṁvat; and sometimes in composition with the name
of the era; as, for instance, in the Ambarnâth inscription of the chieftain Mâmvâṇi (Jour. Bo. Br. R.
As. Soc. Vol. IX. p. 219, and Vol. XII. p. 329, l. 1), Śaka-saṁvat 782 Jyêshṭha śuddha 9 Śukrê, and in
the Sômnâth-Pâṭhaṇ inscription of Arjunadêva of Aṇhilvâḍ (Ind. Ant. Vol. XI. p. 242, l. 2 ff.), Maham-
mada-saṁvat 662 tathâ śrî-nṛipa-Vikrama-saṁ 1320 tathâ śrî-śrīmad-Valabhî-saṁ 945 tathâ śrî-Siṁha-
saṁ 151 varshê Âshâḍha va di 13 Ravau.—The form saṁvat represents the genitive plural, saṁvat-
sarâṇâm, in such passages as Śaka-nṛipa-kâl-âtîta-saṁvatsara-śatêshv=ashṭasu chatur-navaty-
adhikêshv=aṅkataḥ saṁvat 894 &c., in the Kardâ grant of the Râshṭrakûṭa king Kakka III. (Ind. Ant.
Vol. XII. p. 266, l. 47 f.), as contrasted with Śaka-nṛipa-kâl-âtîta-saṁvatsara-śatêshv=ashṭasu pañcha-
pañchâśad-adhikêshv=aṅkatô=pi saṁvatsarâṇâm 855 &c., in the Sânglî grant of Gôvinda V. of the
same dynasty (id. Vol. XII. p. 251, l. 44 f.); the latter is the only passage that I know of, in which the
full genitive case occurs in connection with the numerals. And it evidently stands for the full loca-
tive singular and plural respectively, in such passages as Saṁvat pañcha-saptaty-adhika-dvâdaśa-śat-
âṅkê 1275 &c., in the Chârwâ inscription of Dêvapâla of Dhârâ (No. 10 of the separate publications
of the Archæological Survey of Western India, p. 111, l. 4), and in Śaka-saṁvat êka-navaty-adhika-
nava-śatêshu saṁvat 991 &c., in the Bassein grant of Sêuṇachandra II. (Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 120,
l. 24 f.)—Monier Williams, in his Sanskrit Dictionary, gives saṁvat as an indeclinable; and of course
it properly is so. I am able, however, to quote two epigraphical instances, of modern date, in which
it is used as a declinable; (1) in verse 30 of Dr. Bhagwanlal Indraji's Nêpâl Inscription, No. 19, of
Pratâpamalla, dated Nêpâla-Saṁvat 778 (A.D. 1658-59); Nêpâlê saṁvatê=smin=haya-giri-munibhiḥ