Collection of Prakrit and Sanskrit Inscriptions

Author(s): P Piterson
Publisher: Bhavnagar Archiological Department

Page 18

a friendly hand, in the shape of the river that went headlong from the lake to the sea, to steady him. In that way rejoicing did the long pent-up streams rush to join their lord, the seu.
If Asoka's words suggested to us that the lessons of kindliness and toleration he preaches have unfortunately their present importance for the land he ruled over, the record of the double brcaking and the double mending of the dam of the Lake Beautiful near Junaghar is capable also of a practical application. For Skandagupta's work also yielded to the fury of the elements, how and when we do not know, and no one in this case has yet arisen to respond to the cry of the people “Who will fill for us again our Lake Beautiful"? The very site of the lake is in dispute. On that point, however, the student must be referred to an interesting article in our Asiatic Society's Journal, Vol. XVIII, p. 47, in which Mr. Ardaseer Jamsedjee, then Naib Dewan of Junagbar, claims to have settled the site in question. To restore the lake would be, as the inscriptions testify," an imperial work, and worthy kings". Is it too much to hope that the present Administration local or imperial—will seize the opportunity of serving themselves as heirs in this matter also to Chandragupta, Asoka, and Rudradâman, by giving the people back their lake?
Twenty miles west of the flourishing Bhownuggur and about twenty-five miles north of Palitana's holy hill lies the small town of Vala, which presents absolutely nothing to the eye to tell the story of its former greatness. For this town was the scat of the empire of a dynasty which ruled in Western India, as the Guptas had done before them, for a space of about two hundred and fifty years (A. D. 509-766). We have a contemporary account of the glories of Vala, or Valabhi, in the diary of Hiouen Tsiang, a Chinese Buddhist who, in the course of a journey to the chief centres of his faith in India, did not omit what was then one of the greatest and most flourishing of these. Hiouen Tsiang was in Valabhi in A.D. 640. “This kingdom is," says he," about 1200 miles in circuit, the capital having a circumfurence of six miles. The population is very numerous, and all the families live in wealth. There are a hundred whose wealth amounts to a million. The rarest merchandise from distant countries is found here in abundance. There are a hundred convents of our faith, where nearly 6,000 devotees live. We count several hundred temples of the gods, and the heretics of various sects are exceedingly numerous. When the holy Buddha lived in the
Aho I Shrutgyanam