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

292 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
Provinces. The plates containing the inscription were discovered in digging for stones
to build a house in this town, and are now in the possession of the priests of the temple
of the god Râjîvalôchana. I obtained them, for examination, through the District
Authorities.
The plates, of which the first and last are engraved on one side only, are three in
number, each measuring about 8⅞" by 5⅞". They are quite smooth, the edges of them
being neither fashioned thicker nor raised into rims. They are rust-eaten in a few places;
but the inscription is for the most part in a state of perfect preservation. They are of
fair thickness; but the letters shew through on the reverse sides of the first and last plates,
so clearly that most of them can be read there. The engraving is good; but, as usual,
the interiors of many of the letters shew marks of the working of the engraver's tool.—
Towards the proper right side of each plate, about the centre, there is a hole for a ring
to connect them. The ring, which had not been cut when the grant came under my
notice, is circular, about 7/16" thick and 4½" in diameter. The ends of it are secured, in
the usual way, in the lower part of a seal. The top of the seal is circular, about
3 3/16" in diameter. It has, in relief on a rather deep countersunk surface, across the
centre, a legend, in two lines, of which the text and translation are given below; in the
upper part, a figure of Garuḍa, facing full-front, depicted with the head of a man and the
body of a bird, with his wings expanded, with, apparently, human arms hanging down
between the wings and the feet, and with a serpent, with expanded hood, standing up in
front of and over each shoulder; on the proper right of this, a chakra or discus, the
emblem of Vishṇu; and on the proper left, a śaṅkha or conch-shell; in the lower part, a
floral device.—The weight of the three plates is about 2 lbs. 15 oz., and of the ring and
seal, about 2 lbs. 6¼ oz.; total, 5 lbs. 5¼ oz.—The average size of the letters is about ⅛".
The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets; but they include the separate
form of the lingual ḍ, as distinct from the dental d, e.g. in vâḍavânala, line 6, and gûḍô,
for gûḍhô, line 10. They give another specimen of the 'box-headed' variety, peculiar to
Central India, on which I have commented at page 18 f. above. They include, in line 36,
a form of the numerical symbol¹ for 7, and also of the decimal figure² for 8.—The lan-
guage is Sanskrit, except for the three vernacular terminations in the record of the date
in the last line. The legend on the seal is in verse. The inscription itself, except for one
verse at the beginning and the benedictive and imprecatory verses in lines 25 to 35, is in
prose throughout.—In respect of orthography, we have to notice (1) the use of the
guttural nasal instead of the anusvâra, before ś, in nistriṅśa, line 4; vaṅśa, line 16;
¹ This sign is, perhaps, rather an intermediate form between the numerical symbol and the
decimal figure, as it differs a little from the symbol for 7 which we have in the Bôdh-Gayâ inscription
of Mahânâman, No. 71 (see page 274 above, note 2); but it approximates much more closely to the
symbol, than to the figure.—Gen. Cunningham (Archæol. Surv. Ind. Vol. XVII. p. 17) interpreted
it as 6; probably on account of its resemblance to the modern Bengâlî form of 6. This will not stand;
because of the southern type of the characters of this inscription.—There might possibly be a doubt,
whether it represents 7 or 9. But I think, on the whole, that it is intended for a 7.
² Here we have a fully developed decimal figure, and of the southern type, as shown by the
slight bend to the left in the vertical stroke; it is also explained by the ordinal adjective ashtama,
'the eighth.'—This mixture of a numerical symbol and a decimal figure, is rather unusual. But a
still more marked example occurs in the date of the Shêrgaḍh Buddhist inscription of the Sâmanta
Dêvadatta of Vikrama-Saṁvat 879, where the 800 is expressed by the decimal figure 8 in combination
with a form of the numerical symbol for 100 (see Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 351 f.)