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

58 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
at night, on the sixth day of the month Praushṭhapada (August-September), the lake
Sudarśana (formed in the valley round the foot of Girnâr, by an ancient embankment
across the gorge, near where the inscription is) burst in consequence of excessive rain.
The date, here, and in the two passages further on, is expressed fully in words, not in
numerical symbols. The restoration of the breach, by renewing the embankment, was
effected under the orders of Chakrapâlita after two months' work, in the year one hun-
dred and thirty-seven (A.D. 456-57).
The second part, line 24 to the end, seems to have mentioned Skandagupta and
Parṇadatta again, in passages in line 24 that are now illegible. And then, in
accordance with the general Vaishṇava tendency indicated by the opening invocation of
the whole inscription, it goes on to record that, in the one hundred and thirty-eighth year,
in the time or reckoning of the Guptas (A.D. 457-58), Chakrapâlita caused to be built
a temple of the god Vishṇu under the name of Chakrabhṛit or the 'bearer of the discus.'
After this, the inscription ends with two verses, of which not enough now remains to shew
their purport.
TEXT.¹
First Part.
1 Siddham [||*] Śriyam²=abhimata-bhôgyâṁ naika-kâl-âpanîtâṁ tridaśapati-
sukh-ârtthaṁ yô Balêr=âjahâra | kamala-nilayanâyâḥ śaśvataṁ dhâma
Lakshmyâḥ
by Thomas (Jour. R. As. Soc. N. S. Vol. XIII. p. 538).—In the present series of inscriptions, this
passage, and the genitive plural Guptânâṁ, governed apparently by kâla, in line 27 below, are the
only ones that tend in any way to connect the name of the Guptas with the era used by them. But
not either of them suffices to shew that the era was established by the Guptas themselves; or even
that it had, at this time, received the accepted name of "the Gupta era." And, what the wording
of the first of them really shews, is simply that the date was being recorded in an era which was not
the one in customary use in that part of the country.—The only other passage of a similar tendency is
the date in line 16 f. of the Môrbî copper-plate grant of Jâïṅka, as it has always been accepted up to
now in accordance with Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar's reading and translation,—Paṁch-âśîtyâ yutê=tîtê
samânâṁ śata-paṁchakê | Gauptê dadâv=adô nṛipaḥ s-ôparâgê=rkka-maṇḍalê ||;—"five hundred
and eighty-five years of the Guptas having elapsed, the king granted this, when the disc of the sun
was eclipsed" (Ind. Ant. Vol. II. p. 258.)—But this rendering takes no notice of the fact that the
real reading, in line 17, is not gauptê at all, but gôptê. It is only by the correction of ô into au
that the name of the Guptas can be introduced into this passage. But we may with just as much
reason correct gôptê into gôptṟê, 'to the protector, i.e. the local governor' (compare this word in line
6 of the present inscription); and this is even more sustainable; for the word is entirely separated
from the date in the preceding half of the verse, and it stands immediately before the word dadau,
'he gave,' in connection with which we have every reason to look for a dative (or some other) case
Or, again, without any correction at all, we may translate "the king gave this (charter) at (the village
of) Gôpta;" and thus obtain a village-name that may quite reasonably be taken as the ancient form
of the modern Gôp, which occurs, for instance, in Kâṭhiâwâḍ, about seventy-five miles south-west of
Môrbî, twenty-five miles south of Nawânagar or Jâmnagar, and fifty miles east of Dhiniki, where there
was found the copper-plate grant (genuine or spurious, as may be settled hereafter) of a king Jâikadêva,
dated Vikrama-Saṁvat 794 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 151 ff.).—I must not be understood as disputing
in this note, that the Môrbî date is recorded in the era that had been used by the Guptas. My object
is only to shew that there is nothing in the passage containing the date, that compels us to connect
the name of the Guptas with it. The difficulty in disposing finally of the whole bearing of the
Môrbî inscription, is, that the first plate was lost sight of before it was procured for examination at
all; and now, even the second plate also, the published one, has been mislaid and is not forthcoming.
¹ From the original stone. ² Metre, Mâlinî; and in the next two verses.