Jain Journal 1980 01

SR No.: 520057
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1980
Total Pages: 37
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 2 MB

Page 17

The Badali Inscription of Samvat 84
RAM BALLABH SOMANI
The Badali inscription is one of the important lithic records of the Northern India. It is in Brahmi script. In 1912 A.D. when G.H. Ojha was touring in the district of Ajmer, he noticed this fragment on the mandapa of the Bheruji, which stands in the field about a mile from the village Badali near Bijayanagar, district Ajmer. This stone was used for grinding tobacco by the Bhopa (temple priest). From there, G.H. Ojha brought it to Ajmer and got it preserved in the Rajputana Museum.
It is a part of a hexagonal pillar, which was split in twain. The inscription is engraved on one side of the split portion. It covers 13" x 101" space. The letters of the middle and left side are well preserved and clearly incised. But the letters of the right hand side have mostly become blurred.
This inscription is one of the much debated epigraphs of the Northern India. A group of scholars named G.H. Ojha, K.P. Jayasawal, R.B. Pandey, etc., regard it as pre-Mauryan record. G.H. Ojha's reading of the first two lines of this inscription is virāya bhagavate 80(4) caturāsiti va (se), which means that it was engraved after 84 years of the death of Lord Mahavira. K.P. Jayasawal did not agree with the above conclusion. He thinks it of the Nanda era counted from 458 B.C. But his arguments about Nanda era were generally not accepted by the scholars. R.B. Pandey endorsed the views of G.H. Ojha.3 Among the scholars, who do not take this inscription as pre-Mauryan record, the name of D.C. Sircar stands quite notable. The arguments of these scholars are as under :
(i) No early record contains the use of Mahavira Nirvana era. Its
use in Rajasthan, specially within a century of Mahavira's death, is extremely doubtful.
1 G. H. Ojha, Bharatiya-Lipi-Mala (Ajmer), p.2 fn, /I.A., LVIII, p.21. 2 K. P. Jayasawal, "An Important Brahmi Inscription-Badali Stone with Plate"
published in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, March 1930, Vol.
XVI, Pt.1, pp. 67-68. * R. B. Pandey, Indian Palaeography, p.21. • D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphy, p.240) Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society,
Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 34-38.