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

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS; No. 60, PLATE XXXVII. 255
word vâsakât; but, except at these places, the inscription is in a state of perfect preserva-
tion almost throughout. The plate is fairly thick and substantial; and the letters, which
are shallow, do not shew through on the reverse side of it at all. The engraving is fairly
good; but, as usual, the interiors of the letters shew marks of the working of the engra-
ver's tool throughout.—Onto the proper right side of the plate, there is fused a seal,
oval in shape, about 2⅞" by 3⅜". It has, in relief on a countersunk surface,—at the top,
Garuḍa, represented as a bird, standing to the front, with outstretched wings; and, below
this, a legend in five lines, which, being also in relief, is so worn, that nothing of it can
be read except a few disconnected letters here and there, and Sam[u]drag[u]p[taḥ], very
faintly, at the end of line 5. It must have contained a succinct recital of the genealogy,
after the fashion of the Asîrgaḍh seal of Sarvavarman, No. 47 above, page 219, and the
Sônpat seal of Harshavardhana, No. 52 above, page 231.—The weight of the plate, with
the seal, is 2 lbs. 10 oz.—The average size of the letters is 1/16". The characters belong
to the northern class of alphabets. They include, in line 14, forms of the numerical
symbols¹ for 9 and 10.—The language is Sanskrit; and the inscription is in prose
throughout. In line 3-4, we have, instead of the usual expression utsanna, the word
uchchanna, which, as used here, is, according to Sir Monier Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary,
a Prâkṛit corruption of the Sanskrit utsanna.—In respect of orthography, we have to notice
(1) the doubling of t throughout, in conjunction with a following r, e.g. in prapauttrasya,
line 4; pittrôr, line 8; and sagôttrâya, line 9; (2) the doubling of dh, in conjunction with
a following y, in ayôddhyâ, line 1; (3) the occasional use of b for v, in bô, line 8, and
sambat, line 14; and (4) the use of v for b, in vrâhmaṇa, lines 7 and 10; vahṛichâya,
line 9; and savrahmachâriṇê, line 9-10.
The inscription purports to be one of the Early Gupta king Samudragupta, and
to record a charter issued from his camp at the city of Ayôdhyâ.² It purports to be
dated, in numerical symbols,³ in the year nine (A.D. 328-29), on the tenth solar day,
without any specification of the fortnight, of the month Vaiśâkha (April-May). It is a
non-sectarian inscription; the object of it simply being to record the grant to a Brâhmaṇ,
ostensibly by Samudragupta, of the village of Rêvatikâ in the Gayâ vishaya.
The legend on the seal of this grant is in characters which present a very different
appearance to those of the body of the inscription; as also does the copper of the seal,
as compared with the substance of the plate; and the seal is in all probability a genuine
one of Samudragupta, detached from some other plate. The inscription itself, however,
is undoubtedly spurious. This is shewn conclusively, if by nothing else, by the fact that
from uchchhêttuh, line 1, to dauhittrasya, line 5, the epithets of Samudragupta are uni-
formly in the genitive case; the drafter of the inscription was copying from a grant of
Chandragupta II. or some other descendant of Samudragupta;⁴ he only then recognised
¹The symbol which I take to be meant for 9, was interpreted by Gen. Cunningham as 40.
But it certainly is not 40. It resembles most the decimal figure 2. But the day of the month is
distinctly marked by a form of the numerical symbol for 10. This shews that the sign here also is
intended for a numerical symbol; and the only symbol to which it approximates, is that for 9.
²The modern Ajôdhyâ or Ajûdhyâ (the ‘Oudh or Ajoodhia’ of the Indian Atlas, Sheet No. 87),
Lat. 26° 48' N.; Long. 82° 14' E., on the south bank of the river ‘Ghâgra or Ghôgra,’ about four miles
north-east of Faizâbâd, the chief town of the Faizâbâd Division of Oudh in the North-West Provinces.
³See note 1 above.
⁴Compare the construction in the Mathurâ inscription of Chandragupta II., No. 4 above, page 25,
and in the Bhitarî pillar inscription of Skandagupta, No. 13 above, page 52.