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

88 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
ed by Vatsabhaṭṭi. Hail to the composer and the writer, and those who read or listen (to it)!
Let there be success!
No. 19; PLATE XIIA.
ERAN STONE PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF BUDHAGUPTA.
THE YEAR 165.
THIS inscription was discovered in 1838 by Captain T. S. Burt, of the Engineers, and
was first brought to notice in the same year, in the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. VII. p. 633 f.
when Mr. James Prinsep published his reading of the text, and a translation of it,¹ accom-
panied by a lithograph (id. Plate xxxi.), reduced from an ink-impression made by Captain
Burt.—In 1861, in the same Journal, Vol. XXX. p. 17 ff., Dr. FitzEdward Hall published
his revised reading of the text, from the original pillar, and a translation of it.—And finally,
in 1880, in the Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. X. p. 82, General Cunningham, in reprinting Dr.
Hall’s translation, pointed out that the aksharas in line 3,—in which Mr. Prinsep had found
a reference to the Surâshtras; and which Dr. Hall read as samsurabhâ, and translated by
"chosen land of the gods,"—were in reality a repetition of the date in numerical symbols,
as had, in fact, been suggested, though without particularisation, by Dr. Hall himself, in
the Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XXXI. p. 127, note.
This is another inscription from Êraṇ² in the Khurâi Sub-Division of the Sâgar Dis-
trict in the Central Provinces. It is on the west face towards the bottom of the lower and
square part of a large monolith red-sandstone column, which stands near the well-known
group of temples about half a mile to the west of the village, and which seems from its
position to be specially connected with a small double temple that General Cunningham
has named the "Lakshmî Temple,"³ separated by the intervening "Vishṇu Temple" from
the "Varâha Temple," or temple of the Boar, at which there is the well-known inscription
of Tôramâṇa, No. 36 below.
The writing, which covers a space of about 2' 6½" broad by 1' 7½" high, has suffered a
good deal in places from the weather; but on the original column the whole inscription can
be read with certainty, except a few letters at the proper left side that have been quite
worn away by sharpening tools on the edge of the stone. The bottom line of the inscrip-
tion is about 3' 3" above the plinth from which the column rises.—The size of the letters
varies from ⅜" to ¾". The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets; they
approximate in some respects to the type of the Allahâbâd posthumous pillar inscription
of Samudragupta, No. 1 above, Plate i., and in others to that of the Mathurâ inscription of
Chandragupta II., No. 4, Plate iiiA.; but they also present some developments and differ-
ences that must be attributed partly to their somewhat later age, and partly to the parti-
cular locality to which the inscription belongs. I should be inclined to name them a variety,
with northern characteristics, of the Central India alphabet of towards the end of the fifth
Âdityasêna, No. 42 below, Plate xxviii.—The only instance that I can quote of its use to denote a
copper-plate charter, is in line 20-21 of the ‘Chicacole’ grant of the Mahârâja Indravarman of the
year 128 (Ind. Ant. Vol. XIII. p. 121).
¹ The translation is reprinted in Thomas' edition of Prinsep's Essays, Vol. I. p. 249.
² See page 18 above, and note 1.
³ Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. X. p. 87, and Plates xxv. and xxvi.