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- 12
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
period during which the alphabet of our inscription was in use, and it is only reasonable to allow a margin of about fifty years either way. Hiuen Tsiang's remarks concerning the government of Singhapura make it, I think, likely that it was written near the remoter limit of this period. He says (loc. cit., p. 143) that, at the time of his visit, "the country had no king or rulers, but was in dependence on Kasmir." As our inscription distinctly asserts that kings of the Yadu race ruled the realm of Singhapura since the beginning of the Yuga and enumerates those of eleven generations by name, its date probably falls before the Kasmirian conquest. For even if we assumed, though there is no foundation for such an assumption, that Singhapura again became free shortly after Hiuen Tsiang's visit in 631 A.D., and if we assigned the inscription to the remotest limit, the end of the eighth century, its contents would clash with Hiuen Tsiang's statement. For the eleven generations of kings enumerated we require at least 275 years, which we can in no way get, if we suppose the inscription to have been written after Hiuen Tsiang's visit and after the hypothetical liberation of Singhapura from the Kaśmirian yoke, say between 650 and 1700 A.D. If we'assume that it was incised before those two events, say about 600, the assertion that the Yadavas ruled Singhapura since the beginning of the Yuga, i.e., since time immemorial, and that eleven princes ruled it in a direct line of succession, offers no difficulties. The accession of Senavarman will thus have to be placed in the beginning of the fourth century A.D.
In conclusion I may add that this inscription very forcibly inculcates the necessity of our abstaining from identifying every Chandragupta who may turn up in literary or epigraphic documents with the Maurya or the Gupta king of that name.
L.2.
TRANSCRIPT. Line 1. भी
सर्गस्थितिलयहेतीविश्वस्य [ब्रह्मविष्णुरुद्राणां । मूर्तिचयं प्रदधते संसारभिदे नमो विभवे ॥ [१] यदुवशभुवा राजा सैकपुरं राज्यमा युगाइधताम् । बीसनवम्मनामा राजर्षि प्रक्रमेणासीत् । [२] तनयस्तस्य श्रीमावृपतिरभूदार्यवर्मनाम्दैव । पार्यव्रता प्रथम ख्यापितवास्तदनु यश्चरितैः । [२]
श्रीदत्तवर्मL.3.
नामा दत्ताभयविभवविजयविध्व[स: [1] भीतार्थिकुलारिभ्यो वभूव तस्यात्मजो नृपतिः ॥ [४] सूनुरभूत्तस्य महान्भूपालश् श्रीप्रदीप्तवर्मेति । दन्धिाचपृतना
पतङ्गपटलीप्रदीप्ताग्निः । [५] श्रीखरवर्मेति सुतस्तस्याभूभूपति प्रदानेन । एखये य x क्रितवानुभव व निचये [भवार्थानां । []
श्रीवृषिवर्मसंजस्तस्य वभूवात्मजः .L 1. Road -The word brahma is indistinct. TMetre of verses 1-22, Arya. .L. . The syllable in t
lo faintly visible. The restoration is certain, on account of the word line 3.
I. Rond WATT-The first two syllables of w ater are indistinct.
T
. in
