Epigraphia Indica Vol 33

SR No.: 032587
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1959
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 359

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIII mentioned in the Bhandak inscription ruled in that very period, that this Suryaghosha has to be identified with Sura, the ancestor of Bhimasena II of the Arang copper-plate inscription, and that the said inscription of Bhimasena is dated in the Gupta year 182 (501-02 A.D.). All these suggestions are mere speculations and are, therefore, absolutely unwarranted. There is no clear evidence of Vakaṭaka rule in the Chanda region in the beginning of the fifth century. If one suggests that the Väkäṭakas conquered the area from Süryaghosha, it would be at least as good a conjecture as any of Prof. Mirashi's. The exact period wheh Suryaghosha of the Bhandak inscription flourished is impossible to determine with the evidence at our disposal. The identification of Süryaghosha with Sura is no better than fantastic. The date of the Arang inscription of Bhimasēna II is very clearly and certainly the Gupta year 282 (601-02 A.D.).
The main object of Prof. Mirashi's note is to reiterate his contention that the Bhandak inscription of Bhavadēva Rapakēsarin, now in the Nagpur Museum, was really brought to the Museum from Arang and not from Bhandak, a theory associated with another conjecture that no Marathi-speaking territory formed a part of the dominions of the Panduvaméis. This he has tried to prove on the basis of the evidence of Aurangabadkar who is supposed to have noticed the same inscription in a temple at Arang. It has, however, been forgotten that, in the Mahamayi témple at Arang, there is an inscription of the same Bhavadeva Rapakesarin, which has been noticed in Hiralal's List, 2nd edition, p. 110, No. 183. This Arang inscription is damaged and has not been fully deciphered. But it is interesting to note that the name of Ranakesarin occurs in line 13 of both the Bhandak inscription in the Nagpur Museum and the Arang Mahāmāyi temple inscription. This shows that the two inscriptions had similar, if not exactly the same, contents. Aurangabadkar, therefore, must have noticed this inscription at Arang. It appears that the old king named Suryaghosha built one temple at Bhandak and another at Arang and that both of them were repaired by Bhavadeva Ranakesarin. Bhavadeva's interest in the temples built by Suryaghosha can be easily explained if the latter was an ancestor of the former's mother.
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Prof. Mirashi is eager to show, in support of his theories, that some other inscripton brought to the Nagpur Museum by Wilkinson was confused by Cunningham with Bhavadeva Ranakesarin's record. Formerly he suggested that it was the Nagpur Museum prasasti of the Paramāras that was brought from Bhandak. But now he says that this suggestion was offered in the absence of reliable information. Now, on the authority of Aurangabadkar, he suggests that it was the Sitābaldi inscription of Vikramaditya VI, and not the Bhandak nscription of Bhavadeva Rapakesarin, that was brought from Bhandak to the Nagpur Museum. But this is as clearly unwarranted as the older suggestion. According to local information available to Cunningham at Bhandak, which Prof. Mirashi has himself quoted, the inscribed stone taken away by Wilkinson was a long red slab. This description suits the Bhandak inscription of Ranakesarin in the Nagpur Museum very well and not the Sitabaldi inscription of Vikramaditya VI even in the least. Bhavadova Ranakesarin's Bhandak inscription measures four feet and ten inches in length and one foot and eleven inches in height, although the number of missing syllables at the end of the lines show beyond doubt that the original length of the slab was not less than six feet and a half. On the other hand, the Sitabaldi inscription of Vikramaditya VI is engraved on an elaborately sculptured pillar and the writing covers an area about two feet in length and eleven inches in height. It is impossible to believe that the villagers of Bhandak could have referred to this pillar inscription as an epigraph on a long red slab of stone.
It is difficult to believe that Sitābaldi did not exist before Vikramaditya VI. Even if Vikramaditya's epigraph was brought there from Bhandak, Bhavadeva Raṇakesarin's inscription could also have been brought to the Nagpur Museum from the same place.