by the Rev. W.H. Mill, D.D.
Principal of Bishop's College, Vice-President of the Asiatic Society, &c.
(Read at the Meeting of the 28th ultimo.)
Journal of the Asiatic Society, No. 30
June, 1834
p. 257-270.
One of the most important services rendered to the cause of oriental research of late years, is, perhaps, “the restoration and decyphering of the Allahabad inscription, No. 2,” achieved by Doctor Mill, and published in the Asiatic Journal of June, 1834. [I. Restoration of the Inscription, No. 2, on the Allahabad Column, by the Rev. W.H. Mill, D.D. Principal of Bishop's College, Vice-President of the Asiatic Society, &c. (Read at the Meeting of the 28th ultimo.), Journal of the Asiatic Society, No. 30, June, 1834, p. 257-270.]
In reference to this historical inscription, the learned Principal observes,"Were there any regular chronological history of this part of Northern India, we could hardly fail in the circumstances of this inscription, even if it were without names, to determine the person and the age to which it belongs. We have here a prince who restores the fallen fortunes of a royal race that had been dispossessed and degraded by the kings of a hostile family — who removes this misfortune from himself and his kindred by means of an able guardian or minister, who contrives to raise armies in his cause; succeeding at last in spite of vigorous warlike opposition, including that of some haughty independent princesses, whose daughters, when vanquished, become the wives of the conqueror — who pushes his conquests on the east to Assam, as well as to Nepal and the more western countries — and performs many other magnificent and liberal exploits, constructing roads and bridges, encouraging commerce, &c. &c. -- in all which, allowing fully for oriental flattery and extravagance, we could scarcely expect to find more than one sovereign, to whom the whole would apply. But the inscription gives us the names also of the prince and his immediate progenitors: and in accordance with the above mentioned account, while we find his dethroned ancestors, his grandfather and great grandfather, designated only by the honorific epithet Maha-raja, which would characterize their royal descent and rights — the king himself (Samudragupta) and his father are distinguished by the title of Mahu-raja-Adhi-raja, which indicates actual sovereignty. And the last mentioned circumstance might lead some to conjecture, that the restoration of royalty in the house began with the father, named Chandragupta, whose exploits might be supposed to be related in the first part of the inscription, to add lustre to those of the son.
"Undoubtedly we should be strongly inclined, if it were possible, to identify the king thus named— though the name is far from being an uncommon one) with a celebrated prince so called, the only one in whom the Puranic and the Greek histories meet, the Chandragupta or Sandracoptus, to whom Seleucus Nicator sent the able ambassador, from whom Strabo, Arrian, and others derived the principal part of their information respecting India. This would fix the inscription to an age which its character (disused as it has been in India for much more than a thousand years), might seem to make sufficiently probable, viz. the third century before the Christian era. And a critic, who chose to maintain this identity, might find abundance of plausible arguments in the inscription: he might imagine he read there the restoration of the asserted genuine line of Nanda in the person of Chandragupta, and the destruction of the nine usurpers of his throne: and in what the inscription, line 16, tells of the guardian Giri-Kalkaraka-Svami, he might trace the exploits of Chandragupta's wily brahman counsellor Chanakya, so graphically described in the historical play called the Mudra-Raxasa [Rakshasa], in levying troops for his master, and counterplotting all the schemes of his adversaries able minister Raxasa [Rakshasa], until he recovered the throne: nay the assistance of that Raxasa [Rakshasa] himself, who from an enemy was turned to a faithful friend, might be supposed to be given with his name in line 10 of the inscription. And the discrepancy of all the other names besides these two, viz. of Chandragupta’s son, father, grandfather, and guardian minister, to none of whom do the known Puranic histories of that prince assign the several names of the inscription, might be overcome by the expedient — usual among historical and chronological theorists in similar cases, — of supposing several different names of the same persons.
"But there is a more serious objection to this hypothesis than any arising from the discrepancy of even so many names — and one which I cannot but think fatal to it. In the two great divisions of the Xattriya Rajas of India, the Chandragupta of the inscription is distinctly assigned to the Solar race — his son being styled child of the Sun. On the other hand, the celebrated founder of the Maurya dynasty, if reckoned at all among Xattiiyas, (being, like the family of the Nandas, of the inferior caste of Sudras, as the Greek accounts unite with the Puranas in respecting him,) would rather find his place among the high-born princes of Magadha whose throne he occupied, who were children of the moon: and so he is in fact enumerated, together with all the rest who reigned at Pataliputra or Patibothra, in the royal genealogies of the Hindus. It is not therefore among the descendants or successors of Curu, whether reigning (like those Magadha princes) at Patna, or at Delhi, that we must look for the subject of the Allahabad inscription; but if I mistake not, in a much nearer kingdom, that of Canyacubja or Canouje.”
Laudable as is the caution with which Dr. Mill abandons this important identification, the annals of Pali literature appear to afford several interesting notices, well worthy of his consideration, tending both to remove some of these doubts, and to aid in elucidating this valuable inscription. It will be found in the ensuing extracts from the commentary on the Mahawanso, that the Moriyan was a branch of the Sakyan dynasty, who were the descendants of Ixkswaku, of the solar line: though the name of Chandragupta’s father is not given in the particular work under consideration, to admit of its being compared with the inscription, it is specifically stated that he was the last sovereign of Moriya of that family, and lost his life with his kingdom: his queen, who was then pregnant, fled with her brothers to Pataliputta (where Chandragupta was born) to seek protection from their relations the Nandos, whose grandfather, Susunago, was the issue of a Lichchawi raja, by a "nagarasobhini,” — one of the Aspasias of Rajagaha: he married the daughter of the eldest of these maternal uncles, who were of the Lichchawi line: the issue of that princess would hence appropriately enough be termed “maternal grandson of Lichhawi and he and his son, the subject of this inscription, as the supreme monarchs of India could alone he entitled, of all the rajas whose names are inscribed, to the title Maha raja Adhi raja.” Dr. Mill thus translates the 26th line of the inscription."Of him who is also maternal grandson of Lichchawi, conceived in the great goddess-like Cumara-Dewi, the great king, the supreme monarch Samudra Gupta, illustrious for having filled the whole earth with the revenues arising from his universal conquest, (equal) to Indra, chief of the gods" —
If, under these multiplied coincidences and similarities, and this apparent removal of the Reverend Principal’s objections, the identity of Chandragupta may be considered to be established, Samudragupta would be the Bindusaro of Pali history, to whom, as one of the supreme monarchs of India, the designation would not be inappropriate. And indeed, in the Mahawanso, in describing the completion of the buddhistical edifices in the reign of his son and successor, Dhammasoko, a similar epithet is applied to his empire.Sammuddapariyantan so Jambudipan samantato passi sabbe wiharecha nana, puja wibhusite.
"He saw (by the power of a miracle) all the wiharos, situated in every direction through the ocean-bound Jambudipo, resplendent with offerings."
-- The Mahawanso [Mahavamsa] in Roman Characters With the Translation Subjoined And an Introductory Essay on Pali Buddhistical Literature, In Two Volumes, Volume I, Containing the First Thirty Eight Chapters, by the Hon. George Turnour, Esq., Ceylon Civil Service, 1837
The March number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society contained the result of the Pandit Madhu Rao’s collation of the Allahabad Inscription, No. 2, with others in a similar character -- together with Captain Troyer’s English version and valuable remarks. The learned Pandit’s transcript exhibits such letters only of the pillar in Devanagari as were capable of tolerably certain identification with those found on monuments already deciphered, leaving frequent and often considerable intervals for the remaining letters: and the version, as was indeed unavoidable from such a text, presented still wider intervals. The translation of many of the clauses thus insulated was necessarily of a conjectural kind: and except in the valuable discovery of lines 25 and 26, where the Prince's genealogy occurred, contained nothing like a connected sentence.
A cursory inspection of the transcript and the version convinced me that, where so much was done, more might be certainly attained. To those acquainted with the art of deciphering unknown arbitrary characters in any known language, it is needless to remark that the clear possession of a key to two or three common letters, necessarily draws after it the discovery of all the rest: and that where the further progress of discovery is really barred, it is an infallible proof of some error in the previous assumption. No such error was suspected here (except in some comparatively inconsiderable instances, which may be seen by any one that will take the trouble of comparing the two transcripts together;) and therefore nothing could impede the progress to deciphering the inscription as far as it remained -- provided only the language in which it was written were sufficiently known to us.
Now that this language was the well-known classic Sanscrit -- the language of Menu's Institutes, the Puranas, the Kavyas, &c. admits of no reasonable doubt. The supposition of its being any older Sanscrit, resembling that of the Vedas, to the understanding of which a bhashya or gloss is all but indispensable, is rendered extremely improbable by the apparent date of the monuments on which inscriptions of the same character appear. The style of the Gya Inscription, so satisfactorily deciphered by Sir Charles Wilkins in the 1st volume of the Asiatic Researches; and the metre in which it is composed, the Sardula-vikridita, (which, like all other lyrical measures of that kind occurring in the Hindu drama and elsewhere, belongs to a period in the history of the language long posterior to that of the great sacred epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, by which the present classical Sanscrit was fixed,) would alone be sufficient to remove such a supposition.
With this conviction, I determined to subject the Allahabad Inscription to a close critical examination; discarding in the first instance all reference to other interpretations of the inscription itself, and proceeding only upon the indubitably deciphered letters of the above mentioned Gya Inscription, or rather of that portion of it, of which Lieutenant Burt has now given us a far better facsimile than what is contained in the Society's first volume. Applying this to his excellent copy of the Allahabad Pillar, though at first the limits of discovery appeared no wider, and indeed much narrower, than in what has already been presented to the Society, yet by carrying on the results of what was thus ascertained, whenever any glimpses of decided meaning appeared, to the investigation of characters before unknown, and testing the conjectures, thus made by other places — the usual result of such inquiries displayed itself. What was at first mere assumption turned to probability, and then to certainty: and such places as the juxta-position of the names of known countries in line 19, but above all, the short clause in line 27 on which the rest of the inscription hangs — (ravi-bhuvo bahur ayam ucchritas stambhas, "of this Sun-born king this lofty pillar is the arm") — occurring as they did to me not as the basis of conjecture, but as the unexpected results of inferences from other probable assumptions, — removed all possibility of doubt. And notwithstanding the turgid character of the composition, and the enormous length of the epithets affixed to this "child of the Sun," consisting often of more than 25 words, and fitting the whole line — the meaning is sufficiently connected and definite in this, which is the greatest part of the inscription; to remove all doubt of the accuracy with which Devanagari letters are assigned to the several characters* [In one instance I was assisted to the meaning of an ill-defined letter resembling a [x] in the accurate facsimile, — by the partial specimen of the inscriptions on the pillar given in the 7th Volume of the As. Res. (Plate xiv.) — which though very inferior in accuracy to Lieutenant Burt's, yet having been taken at a time when the pillar had not been so much defaced as at present, may be conceived to convey some characters more perfectly. The character was there [x] distinctly, and as this happily made sense of what was before unintelligible, its accuracy could not be questioned.]. In one only of the regal proper names, that of the king’s grandfather GHATOTKACHA, does my reading differ from Captain Troyer’s: and it is observable that this is also the name of a son of the Pandava hero Bhima Sena, brother of Yudhisthira and Arjuna in the Mahabharata, and might perhaps have given rise to the popular appellation of this pillar in Hindustan, "the Staff of Bhima Sen."
The test arising from definite and continuous meaning applies of course only to those parts where the inscription is itself complete, and clear of all considerable interruption, viz. all from the 14th to the 29th lines inclusive, (for the 30th is separate from the rest, and appears broken off like the earlier lines,) perhaps also the 2nd and 3rd, which, though short, seem to me to be very nearly complete. But even in the other lines, the words and the compounds are intelligible: and if we except the 1st, and the end of the 6th, lines (the first containing but nine insulated letters, and the last breaking off in the midst of a compound, leaving the preceding words in that compound uncertain as to their bearing) — the separate clauses may be pretty well traced, though their import in the sentence is lost. In all these, lacunae of various lengths occur in the pillar, which I have scrupulously filled up with precisely the same number of letters as are designated by Lieutenant Burt for the several intervals. It is not by any means intended to ascribe to these added† [These letters are distinguished in the transcript by a much smaller character.] letters of my own, (except when the interval is very small, as in line 24,) the same degree of accuracy which I should be disposed to claim for all, with one or two exceptions only, of the transcribed letters: for the most part they merely indicate the probable (and in some cases of very marked meaning, as in line 28, the certain) equivalents of the letters that formerly occupied the same spaces. Where lacunas occur at the end of a line, I had no such consideration to guide me: here, as in lines 18 and 26, it was merely my object to close the imperfect compound by as few letters as would serve the purpose of expressing the evident meaning. In the earlier lines, the idea of completing the sentence by such means was out of the question.
In these conjectural supplements, as well as for ascertaining the true transcript of letters in doubtful cases, the discovery of a lyric measure like that of the Gya Inscription, in which the succession of long and short syllables is determined by invariable rule, would have been a most valuable assistance. But not merely is such measure as this undiscoverable in the greater part of the inscription — but every rhythm whatever (including the freer measures of the Arya genus, or the loose Anustup of Valmiki) is equally absent from it — as an examination of all the complete lines from the 14th downward will evidently show* [The apparent rhyme observed by Lieut. Burt, is merely the genitive termination asye at the end of each huge compound epithet, agreeing with "the Sun- born King" above-mentioned.]. Some of the incomplete lines have indeed a deceitful resemblance to metre— the 4th line to the Sardula-vikridita, (the measure of the Gya Inscription,) and the 12th to a yet longer lyric measure of twenty-one syllables, called Srag-dhara: but in each of these cases perfect application of the prosodiacal rule is forbidden† [The name kavyam applied by the author himself in line 28 to his inscription, will apply to unmetrical poetry, as well as to that which has the advantage of prosody.] by some one or more syllables in the line, whose reading cannot be mistaken. The only genuine appearance of metre that the closest examination could detect is in the 8th and 9th lines, which are proved by the undeviating regularity of all the syllables, as far as they can be traced on the pillar, to form together a stanza of the measure called Mandakranta, (the same in which Calidasa’s beautiful poem, the Cloud Messenger, is composed,) one of very frequent occurrence in the lyric poetry of the Hindus. In this measure, each of the four padas or versicles which compose the stanza consists of two Spondees, a Proceleusmatic, and three Bacchii, having the caesura after the tenth syllable; thus;
- - - - u u u u u - ' - u - - u - -
Accordingly, in the additions necessary for these two lines, I have taken care not only to preserve the measure, but to expand them so as to complete the hemistich in each case. But this slight and solitary advance beyond the usual necessary addition of letters is made more to indicate the prosody of the preceding syllables, and to mark precisely the certain length of the line in these places, than with any pretence of supplying the very words that are effaced. The real termination of these lines, as of the fourth and others, if found, would clear up the obscurity that now necessarily attaches to all the early part of the inscription, and on which it would be now vain to offer any conjecture.
To the Devanagari transcript is annexed a close interlineary version, in the only language (one excepted) whose freedom of collocation and general analogy to Sanscrit made it available for the purpose— distinguishing always by brackets the version of the intercalated or added syllables, the necessity of which will thus be often apparent to the Western reader. I have now to subjoin a somewhat looser version in English— to which I would prefix merely the following brief analysis of the inscription.
LINE 1. Unintelligible, and most probably unconnected with what follows.
2, 3. Invocation in behalf of the sculptor and blackener of the letters of the inscription.
4-12. Various descriptions, at first dependent on the relatives yas, yasya (who and whose), but afterwards governed by the antecedent personal pronoun sa, (he,) all of which evidently relate to the same person, and that the king— but which, from the incompleteness of the lines, and the absence of verbs governing the principal substantives, cannot be traced in their conjunct meaning as one sentence, which it is evident they must have composed.
13-27. Panegyrical descriptions of the same king in the genitive case, (connected at first with the nominatives of line 13, but afterwards evidently with the Pillar-Arm at the conclusion,) viz. Samudra-Gupta, son of Chandra-Gupta, of the Solar race, all sufficiently perfect and intelligible.
28. Comparison of the king’s glory to the sacred water of the nethermost Ganges in the Mahabharata.
28, 29. Name and description of the self-satisfied author of this panegyric, (whose intellect, as he tells us himself, was utterly subverted by his intimacy with the great king, when he ventured on this composition,) concluding with a salutation to the Deity.
Then, after a very wide space, comes
30. A compliment, somewhat obscure and imperfect, to the author's immediate superior and patron.
Translation.
1. The jackal [left the b]ear in the forest. (Y).
2. This goodly s[ign] of one endued by nature with a mind of fire having been, for the conveyance of his commands, covered over with ink; may the ma[ker also] fixed [as the letters themselves by the durability and immortality of the monument he has raised, viz.]
3. The [king’s] dependant Vitka, having formed these [letters] for the love of the multiplied virtues of the son of the bow-armed Siva [viz. Ganesa patron of letters] enjoy in heaven, even in the city of Vrdhas [BRAHMA] himself, the royal glory of eminent poetical dignity!
4. He who while worthy of eulogy, yet by means of informers, whose character is much to be concealed, men whose hair is diminished by being often pulled, was entangled and impeded by the pride of men of obscure family, a hoary-headed counsellor being - - - - - - - - .
5. He who was distinguished in letters, even by the able ontologist Chaxan, called familiarly the talking Guru, with the honourable appellation of one in whom all [admirable qualities] are united.
6. By this [excellent Guru] resembling those [true sages] who are utterly alien from all delight in selfish worldly occupations, - - - - -
7. He, having been inflamed with warlike prowess, before whom prostration being made even by the enemies' forces, the conjoined battle strife of armies disappeared, - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
8. Whose mothers-in-law* [The great Rajas of India have frequently been polygamists— and in these cases, the father and mother of each wife, as well as those of the sole rightful queen, bear the honourable names of svasura and svasu (socer and socrus), i.e. father and mother-in-law. The mothers-in-law here appear to have been independent princesses, whose daughters were thus won in battle by Samudra Gupta, and seem to me undoubtedly those, whose homage to the conqueror is described as increased by their alliance and hope of royal offspring, in lines 18, 19, With respect to the grievous sin for which his repentance is recorded in line 12, the incompleteness of the line precludes all but the merest conjecture.— On the 6th and 7th lines it may be remarked that the heroic ages of India afford examples of Brahmanical military tutors to young Rajas,— who like Drona are said to have united great skill in war to eminent contemplative devotion.], formerly proud and addicted to high minded oppressions perpetually, having been by his own arm subdued with the sword of battle, [viz. Sanharica and the rest, - - (line 18.)] - -
9. By their passions, at first fiercely erect and tall as the stalks of green barley, at length bursting forth and ripening into affection through the abundant juices within, thus became penitent [in heart permanently from that time; and]
10. When, sprung from the bank of the [sacred ?] river, the strength of the arm of Raxasa and the rest, directing his arms, had even removed mountains, by the death of the formidable [rapid victor] Xanajit,— then he also
11. With assiduous offerings to the planetary deities — did in his own pleasure gardens, from which are gathered noble garlands of flowers woven as it were from the Sesbana grandiflora — [seek to propitiate the immortals].
12. But though the glories of greatness, of clemency, and of warlike prowess were in him blended into one, as [the several colours] in the pure white rays of the moon; yet was there at this time no [remis] sion of his past grievous offence.
13. Still not his was the path of those devoted to the present life, nor any dereliction of the wisdom and power which belongs to contemplative sages; nor was there any poetical censurer of him, whose gifts were without end.
14. Of him therefore, skilled in the due performance of the hundred libations of consecrated ghee to Brahma, who by the strength and power of his arm reduces his foes to bondage, and brandishes for the destruction of their hosts barbed darts and swords and lances* [Or "iron clubs." For the Sanscrit [x] bears both meanings.]; —
15. Of him whose salvation is in the guardian of waters [Varuna] the terrible Siva and Vishnu, surpassing the graces of the most adorned recited speech by the rising splendours of a name illustrious for the hundred wounds inflicted on the [rival] tribe by strokes of the flesh-devouring arrows of iron, as well as of weapons grasped by the hand and others; —
16. Of him, who after the royal insignia had been destroyed by the hand of the [hostile] monarch, as it were the tiger of the forest, the great lord of wild buffaloes, — yet having from the resources of his excellent guardian Giri-kahlaraka the gift of infantry and other soldiers— became by the mixture of this benevolent aid with the royal majesty that sprung from it, no longer unfortunate; —
17. Of him whose mind was next intent upon the capture of all the kings of the South and of the East, as well as of Dhananjaya, protector of the North country, springing from the race of the divine Ugrasena, splendid as the sun, and patron of Hastivarman — a bard equal to the blue sovereign [Siva?] himself;— who therefore is justly worshipped by his ministering lieges, as sole king of all the gods; —
18. Of him whose state might be propounded as an object of imitation, in respect of troops, chariots, and other [war-like apparatus] even to the divine Rudra, the wise Nagadatta, to Chandra [god of the moon] to Vahni [or Agni, lord of fire], to Ganesa, to Nriga, [brother of Ixvacu, of the solar race], to Nagasena, and to the unmoveable forces of the Nandis [Siva’s attendant gods]— and who moreover by Sanharica and all the rest [of the vanquished mothers-in-law] who have the accumulative incentive of the wish and prayer for a royal offspring, is approached with all just payment of tribute, with propitiatory gifts, and with reverent prostration; --
19. Of him who when his fame penetrated to the friendly province of Pines —to Camarupa [the present kingdom of Assam] — and to Nepal, did for the sake of procuring a shower of darts to pierce the princes even of the extreme west and other quarters, dispose his soldiers in ambush behind the stations of the cowherds of Madra — and is therefore celebrated by the poet whom this battle raised up [to commend the stratagem], as equal in the rapid destruction of his foes to the Lord Siva, or to Cama or Aruni, [the gods of love and fire— thus celebrated] also by Sanharica and all the rest [of the allied princesses]; —
20. Of him whose governments invariably strict— who moreover has the glory, a glory pervading the highest heaven, of largesses to destitute persons, invited by him in pursuance of the restitution of a royal race sprung from a kingdom which the [enemies] soldiers had subverted— who moreover imposed on the rank foliage of forests, on the lakes, and on the land, the chains [of clear roads and of bridges respectively]-— who on the earth has no equal as a car-borne warrior; —
21. Of him who bears a gentle and kind disposition, to be hailed by the inhabitants of all the islands of the ocean with pure constant worship of oblation and sacrifice — the materials of which spring from the revenues obtained by his wise assessment from the produce of cultivators firmly and devotedly subjected to him as was the bird Garuda to Vishnu, [a devotion testified] by the harmonious confluence of their loyal words and songs addressed to himself — who also without being addicted to works [alone, but spiritual science also, yet] bestows hundreds and thousands upon the affairs of heaven and of earth; --
22. Of him whose glory in war obliterates that of all other kings beside himself, by reason of the multitude of virtues, diverse in kind, embellished in hundreds of poems — from fear of whose [vigorous rule] dissensions never arise — who is alike pure from the stains of grief and of foolish laughter — who is in devotion unrivalled — and who having by his own arm subdued so many kings, has succeeded further in taming the so great fury and wrath [that such reverse naturally produces] by the continual intercourse and profit of the western commerce begun with the riches derived from that conquest; —
23. Of him who is pleased with long poems of victory closely following the battle-array formed by the king himself, whose disposition is that of the [Supreme Lord, the] Lord of the Poor; who is at the same time the slayer of elephants that smite in war — and is consecrated as the most excellent of learned kings by [Cuvera] giver of wealth, by Varuna, by Indra, and him who dwells in the mansions of death [Yama]; who is renowned for noble exploits to be heard to distant times, and sounded even to heaven; —
24. Of him by whom are well understood, the Gandharvas or celestial songsters, learned and of excellent wisdom; also the regent of the planet Mars; also [Balarama* [So I conjecture from the legend found in the Sri Bhagavat and elsewhere concerning Balarama, the 8th incarnation of Vishnu, having depressed all the eastern part of the earth. But perhaps the epithet may refer to the deities of the destroying elements Water or Fire.]] foe of the earth; also the preceptor of Indra himself, the lord of the thrice-blessed immortals [viz. Vrihaspati, regent of Jupiter]; also Tumbaru [the wise Gandharva], and Narada, and all the rest [of the ultra-deified sages] — who moreover is consecrated as the most excellent of kings by acts worthy of the poems of the great Rishi Vyannaca [or the foodless† [Perhaps a title of the great Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, who is said to have fasted ten thousand years! unless the terms of the inscription should be thought to require the name of some poet who has sung the exploits of Samudra-Gupta himself. ]], who is renowned for noble exploits to be heard to distant times, and sounded even to heaven; --
25. Of him whose mind is in time of affliction and distress, ever singly intent on the disposition and arrangement of charitable works; who is a god in the mansion of the world; the great grandson of the great king GUPTA, grandson of the great king GHATOTKACHA, son of the great king, the supreme monarch CHANDRA GUPTA; --
26. Of him who is also maternal grandson of Lichhavi, conceived in the great goddess-like Cumara-Devi, the great king, the supreme monarch Samudra Gupta, illustrious for having filled thee whole earth with the revenues arising from his universal conquest, [equal] to Indra chief of the gods; —
27. Of this child of the Sun, though clothed in hairy flesh, this lofty pillar is the arm, sustaining all his friends with powerful assistance both at home and in foreign travel; of him, [I say,] whose fame raised by gradual accumulation of materials to the most exalted eminence in the strength of the arm of his liberality, and the abundance of his sentences respecting the law of tranquil meditation, is extended in various directions.
28. And that [fame] purifies the three worlds; even as the [sacred stream given by Arjuna the hero] of the house of Pandu, [purified the dying] Bhishma, thus encircled within the noble bandage of the slotted hair of Siva [whence Ganges first sprung]. Such is the unequalled eulogy, the composition of him who serves the countenance of the great monarch, who by reason of the favour of continually going about in his presence is even infatuated in mind, —
29. The mature* [I am by no means satisfied with this rendering of [x] but I can find no better. The translation "culinary dwarf" had occurred to me: thus associating to the character of dwarf (in Sanscrit [x]) that attachment to good cheer, which is a standing characteristic of the half buffoon, half counsellor, called Viddshana in the Indian drama, and considered as a Brahmanical appendage to royalty. But the words scarcely bear out either interpretation -- nor is this association of the characters of dwarf and of royal attendant confirmed by any Indian example that I am aware of, however common in the fairy tales of Persia and the West.] dwarf — son of the great superintendant of penal justice Srava-bhuti, who is both in peace and war, the counsellor of the young king, the great superintendant [of penal justice] Hari Nana. Salutation to [God], the kind friend of all creatures.
30. But with whom, however devoted to the study of the Rig Veda, the best gift of the Supreme Sovereign, [can we compare] Tilabhatta, the great superintendant of penal justice, surrounded by his army [of inferior ministers of the law]?
Remarks on the above Inscription.
The style of laboured ornament affected in the public inscriptions of India is strongly contrasted with the severe simplicity of the same kind of composition in the monuments of other ancient nations; and the deciphering of the Allahabad pillar does not appear destined to remove in any degree this reproach from the national taste. With the criticism, however, of this inscription, as a literary work, we are little concerned: but only with light that it may help to throw on the history of the people for whom it wad written.
Were there any regular chronological history of this part of Northern India, we could hardly fail in the circumstances of this inscription, if it were without names, to determine the person and the age to which it belongs. We have here a prince who restores the fallen fortunes of a royal race that had been dispossessed and degraded by the kings a hostile family — who removes this misfortune from himself and his kindred by means of an able guardian or minister, who contrives to raise armies in his cause; succeeding at last in spite of vigorous warlike opposition, including that of some haughty independent princesses, whose daughters, when vanquished, become the wives of the conqueror— who pushes his conquests on the east to Assam, as well as to Nepal and the more western countries — and performs many other magnificent and liberal exploits, constructing roads and bridges, encouraging commerce, &c. &c. — in all which, allowing fully for oriental flattery and extravagance, we could scarcely expect to find more than one sovereign, to whom the whole would apply. But the inscription gives us the names also of the prince and his immediate progenitors: and in accordance with the above-mentioned account, while we find his dethroned ancestors, his grandfather and great-grandfather, designated only by the honorific epithet Maha-raja, which would characterize their royal descent and rights — the king himself (Samudragupta) and his father are distinguished by the title of Maha-raja Adhirdja, which indicates actual sovereignty. And the last-mentioned circumstance might lead some to conjecture, that the restoration of royalty in the house began with the father, named Chandragupta, whose exploits might be supposed to be related in the first part of the inscription to add lustre to those of the son.
Undoubtedly we should be strongly inclined, if it were possible, to identify the king thus named — (though the name is far from being an uncommon one) with a celebrated prince so called, the only one in whom the Puranic and the Greek* [This identity, which after the researches of Schlegel (Indische Bibliothek), and Wilson (preface to the Mudra Raxasa in the 3rd volume of the Hindu Theatre); may be considered as established, has been questioned on very insufficient grounds by Professor Heeren in the last volume of his admirable Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of, the Principal Nations of Antiquity. The Indian accounts vary as much from each other concerning Chandragupta as they do even the classical accounts of Sandracoptus.] histories meet, the Chandragupta or Sandracoptus, to whom Seleucus Nicator sent the able ambassador, from whom Srabo, Arrian and others derived the principal part of their information respecting India. This would fix the inscription to an age which its character (disused as it has been in India for much more than a thousand years), might seem to make sufficiently probable, -- viz, the third century before the Christian era. And a critic, who chose to maintain this identity, might find abundance of plausible arguments in the inscription: he might imagine he read there the restoration of the asserted genuine line of NANDA in the person of CHANDRAGUPTA, and the destruction of the nine usurpers of his throne: and in what the inscription, line 16, tells of the guardian Giri-Kahlaraka-Svami, he might trace the exploits of Chandragupta's wily Brahman counsellor Chanakya, so graphically described in the historical play called the Mudra-Raxasa, in levying troops for his master, and counterplotting all the schemes of his adversaries' able minister Raxasa, until he recovered the throne: nay the assistance of that Raxasa himself, who from an enemy was turned to a faithful friend, might be supposed to be given with his name in line 10 of the inscription. And the discrepancy of all the other names beside these two, viz. of Chandragupta's son, father, grandfather, and guardian minister, to none of whom do the known Puranic histories of that prince assign the several names of the inscription — might be overcome by the expedient usual among historical and chronological theorists in similar cases, — of supposing several different names of the same persons.
But there is a more serious objection to this hypothesis than any arising from the discrepancy of even so many names — and one which I cannot but think fatal to it. In the two great divisions of the Xattriya Rajas of India, the Chandragupta of the inscription is distinctly assigned to the Solar race — his son being styled child of the Sun. On the other hand, the celebrated founder of the Maurya dynasty, if reckoned at all among Xattriyas, (being, like the family of the Nandas, of the inferior caste of Sudras, as the Greek accounts unite with the Puranas in representing him,) would rather find his place among the high-born princes of Magadha whose throne he occupied, who were children of the Moon: and so he is in fact enumerated, together with all the rest who reigned at Pataliputra or Palibothra, in the royal genealogies of the Hindus. It is not therefore among the descendants or successors of Curu, whether reigning (like those Magadha princes) at Patna, or at Dehli, that we must look for the subject of the Allahabad inscription; but if I mistake not, in a much nearer kingdom, that of Canyacubja or Canouje. This is well known to have been the seat of an extensive empire on the Ganges, founded by a branch of the Solar family, after the decline of Ayodhya or Oude, the ancient capital of Rama and his ancestors. And this opinion is confirmed by the coins lately discovered at Canouje, in which we find characters exactly corresponding to those of our inscription — and the same prefix to the king's name on the reverse of the coin, viz. Maha-raja Adhiraja Sri. One of these, a gold coin, communicated to me by Mr. J. Prinsep, and exhibited in the last number Pl. IX. fig. 24, had struck me, before I saw the engraving, as seeming to bear on the obverse the name of GHATOTKACHA, (not, however the father of Chandragupta so named on the pillar, from whom the title of Adhiraja is withholden, as I before remarked -- but a reigning prince of the same name and family.) But another gold coin of the same class, in Plate I. fig. 19 of the XVIIth. volume of the As. Res. seems to me an undoubted coin of our Chandragupta* [No. 13 bears the cognate name of Sasigupta, and Nos. 5, 7, 12, 17, &c. contain names, more or less distinct, of others of the same dynasty. -- Mr. Prinsep, whose attention I called to those coins, thinks also that No. 12, which is in his possession, bears the name of our Samudragupta: and indeed the resemblance is sufficiently striking to authorize the belief.].
Unfortunately the catalogues of the children of the Sun, in the Hari-Vansa, the Bhagavat, and the Vansa-lata, as published by Dr. HAMILTON, are far from being so full and ample as those of the Lunar race, (to which the heroes both of the Mahabharata and the Sri Bhagavat belong:) and neither these, nor I believe the Vishnu and Kurma Puranas, extend their lists to the princes of this particular dynasty. From the first formation of this solar royalty at Canouje to its extinction in the person of Jaya Chandra, A. D. 1193, I know no authenticated name but that of Yasovarman, said in the Raja Tarangini to have been the patron of the dramatist Bhavabhuti, and to have been expelled from his kingdom by the Cashmirian conqueror Lilitaditta, about A.D. 720: — till we come to the last five, viz. the Rahtore princes, whose names from Chandradeva to Jayachandra, are known from inscriptions and coins, all in modern Devanagari, and posterior by several centuries to our inscription. (A.R. vols. 9, 15, 17). Until further lists be obtained, therefore, the apparent absence† [Unless indeed the mysterious isolated words at the end, [x] "on the Aran's bank or shore," should be thought to inclose a date. According to some numeral rules used amongst Hinda mathematicians, these words might denote 22: and this applied to the era of Vicramaditta, the usual era in those parts, would bring us to B.C. 34. But I need not observe how slippery such a conclusion must be.] of all date on this part of the column, must preclude any thing like exact determination of the time that elapsed between its hero Samudragupta and Yasovarman.
As far as it is possible to form a judgment on internal evidence concerning the age of so short a composition as this, from the enumeration of deities, or the traces of manners that may be discoverable in it, I should be inclined to think that it was written after the hero-worship, which the sacred epics first introduced, had begun decidedly to take place of the simple elementary adoration visible in the ancient hymns of the Vedas — yet before it had altogether its present shape, and apparently before the worship of the linga, and that of the sactis, the most impure parts of an impure system, had begun to attain the footing which they had in India at the period of the first Mahometan invasions. While the distinction of works and of spiritual science, as taught in the Upanishads, and pervading all the literature of the Hindus, is alluded to more than once in the inscription; — the Brahmans have that honor as spiritual superiors which we find assigned to them in the Ramayana and Mahabharata — not that excessive superiority and extravagant homage which in subsequent ages they claimed from princes: the Brahman here contributes to the honour of the king, not, as in some later inscriptions, the king to the honour of the Brahmans. But I cannot forbear from quoting at length the passage of the Mahabhrata to which allusion is made in line 28 — proving, that at the date of this inscription, the sacred epic of Vyasa was regarded and quoted in nearly the same manner as in later ages. The passage is from the 118th canto of the Bhishma-parva, describing that hero's death, surrounded by the chiefs of both the rival branches of the house of Curu: and is as follows;
But Bhishma, O chief of the Bharatas, with firmness suppressing the sense of pain, while burning with the arrows that pierced him, and breathing hardly like a serpent — nor only with body inflamed, but with mind also maddened with the wounds of those sharp weapons, exclaimed only "Water!" when he saw the princes approaching. Then, O king, did those Xattriyas collect immediately from every quarter food of various kinds, and goblets of cold water upon seeing which the son of Santanu sadly exclaimed, "Not now can such ordinary human pleasures be tasted by me: for now cut off from mankind, I am stretched upon my arrowy* [The sara-sayya, or arrowy bed, was assumed as a voluntary penance in imitation of Bhishma by a singular devotee, who was living at Benares in the year 1792, a curious account of whose travels and adventures, together with a portrait of him stretched on his pointed bed, was given by Mr. Jonathan Duncan in the 5th volume of the Society’s Transactions. [In that account, p. 5, Bhskma Pitamamha, is merely the Indul mode ([x] for [x]) of writing "Bhishma the grandsire," or rather grand-uncle of the contending chiefs of the houses of Dhritarashtra and Pandu.] bed, and lie expecting the hour when the sun and moon shall be closed to me." But having spoken thus, O Bharata! chiding by his words the assembled chiefs, the son of Santanu added, “I would see Arjuna." Upon which, he of the mighty arm approaching with salutation his grand-uncle, and standing with hands joined and body bent forward, said, "What shall I do?" And the pious Bhishma, with pleasure beholding the great Pandava chief standing before him, answered, "My body burns, covered as I am with thy arrows, my vitals are racked, my mouth is dry: bring some water, Arjuna, to my tortured frame, for thou of the great bow art able to give me such streams as I require." The brave Arjuna thus addressed, having mounted his car, and fitted his bow-string, bent his strong bow called Gandiva, for the intended shot: and on hearing the twang of that bow-string, a sound as if bursting from the thunder-bolt of Indra -- all creatures trembled, even all those chiefs themselves. Then he, the best of charioteers, having wheeled his car in a reverential circle round Bhishma on his right, the prostrate son of Bharata, best of all hurlers of weapons — and having taken a flaming arrow, and breathed a magical sentence (mantra) over it, and fitted it to his bow -- the whole world looking on — did with that dart of thunder pierce the whole earth close on the right side of Bhishma — and thence sprung up a pure beauteous stream of cold water, like the nectar of the immortals, of divine scent and flavour: and with this cold stream did he powerfully refresh Bhishma, prince of the Curus, of god-like works and prowess. With this work of the prince Arjuna, as of a mighty transforming magician, the lords of the earth were seized with extreme astonishment, beholding it as a deed equally compassionate and transcending all human power.