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

68 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
(L. 9.)—He, being alarmed when he observed the whole of this world (to be ever)
passing through a succession of changes, acquired for himself a large mass of religious
merit. (And by him),—having set up, for the sake of final beatitude (and) for the wel-
fare of (all) existing beings, five excellent¹ (images), made of stone,² (of) those who led
the way³ in the path of the Arhats who practise religious observances,—there was then
planted in the ground this most beautiful pillar of stone, which resembles the tip of the
summit of the best of mountains, (and) which confers fame (upon him).
No. 16; PLATE IX B.
INDOR COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF SKANDAGUPTA.
THE YEAR 146.
THIS inscription was discovered in 1874 by Mr. A. C. L. Carlleyle, First Assistant to
the Director-General of the Archæological Survey of India; and was first brought to
notice, in the same year, in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XLIII. Part I. p. 363 ff., where
a lithograph of it was published, prepared by General Cunningham (id. Plate xix.), accom-
panied by a version of the text, and a translation of it, by Dr. Rajendralala Mitra.
The inscription is on a copper-plate which was found in a small stream at Indor,
the ancient Indrapura and Indrâpura of the inscription, a large and lofty mound about
five miles to the north-west of Dibhâî,⁴ the chief town of the Dibhâî Pargaṇâ in the
Anupshahar⁵ Tahsîl or Sub-Division of the Bulandshahar District in the North-West Pro-
vinces. Until recent years, Indôr was a small inhabited village; but it is now only a khêḍâ,
or deserted mound, and is not shewn in maps. I obtained the original plate, for examina-
tion, from the possession of General Cunningham.
The plate is a single one, inscribed on one side only, measuring about 8¼" by 5¼" at the
ends and 5⅞" in the middle. The edges of it are here and there slightly thicker than the
surface of the plate, with small depressions inside them at the same places; but there does
not seem to have been any intention of purposely fashioning the edges thicker all round,
so as to serve as a rim to protect the writing.⁶ The surface of the plate is in some places
¹ indrân.—Bhagwanlal Indraji, in his published version, first pointed out the kind of meaning
to be given to this word here.
² lit. ‘made of (the substance of) mountains.’
³ âdikartrîn; lit. ‘originators.’—Bhagwanlal Indraji first pointed out the correct meaning of
this word, as referring here to five of the Tîrthaṁkaras or sanctified teachers of the Jains.
⁴ The ‘Dabhai, Dhubhai, Dibai, and Dubhaee,’ of maps, &c. Indian Atlas Sheet, No. 67. Lat.
28° 12' N.; Long. 78° 18' E.—The position of Indôr, with reference to Dibhâî, is shewn in the sketch
map given in Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. XII. Plate i
⁵ The ‘Anoopshuhur and Anupshahr’ of maps, &c.
⁶ Dr. Burnell allotted the earliest instances of arranging for the preservation of the writing or
copper-plates, by beating up the margins round the plates and then flattening the edges, to the ninth
or tenth century A.D. (South-Indian Palæography, p. 92). But there are plenty of earlier instances,
in the south, as well as in the north of India. These raised rims were obtained, at first, by thickening
the plates at the edges, in the process of fashioning them. Afterwards, it became customary to beat
the plates out quite smooth, and then to turn them up at the edges and fuse them together at the cor-
ners; and some of the Eastern Chalukya plates, made in this way, have raised rims a good quarter of
an inch high.