Epigraphia Indica Vol 08

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 52

No. 6.]
JUNAGADH INSCRIPTION OF RUDRADAMAN.
a piece of writing which, mutilated as it is, shows the writer to have been endowed with no mean poetio power. Prof. Bühlerl has well shown that the author, trusting to the effect of a plain, yet forcible narrative and characterization of events and individuals, makes spare use of those, often merely conventional, ornaments which abound in later inscriptions. With the exception of a play on the word Sudariana, the name of the lake, and one or two cases of an upamd, the 80-called arthalankáras may be said to be absent from his text. On the other hand, he shows & decided predilection for that kind of sabdálankára which consists in the repetition of one and the same group of syllables in neighbouring words (as e.g. in praharana-vitarana, 1. 10, samagránáin ... vishayánam vishayanán, 1. 11, avidhéyanan Yaudhéyanán, 1. 12, -namna .. -dämnd . Rudradámná, 1. 15, saktëna dánten-achapalên=dvismitên=aryyên=charyyêra, 1. 19, etc.), and he occasionally makes use of the ornament of alliteration (as 6.g. in akritrimôna setubandhen=őpapannan supprativihita-ppranáļi-parivaha-midhavidhanań, !. 2, etc.).
The general purport of the inscription has been given above. It remains to point out briefly some details, the full discussion of which, after all that has already been written about them, would necessitato a careful examination of other records some of which are in course of being re-edited critically by another scholar, and lies beyond the scope of this paper. The principal figure in our inscription is (the Western Kshatrapa,) the king (and) Mahåkshatrapa Rudradâman; the name of his father (the Kshatrapa Jayadaman) was given in line 4, but has disappeared; his father's father was the king (and) Mahakshatrapa, Lord Chashtana (1.4). From an epithet in line 15 we learn that Rudradaman himself acquired or assumed the title of Mahakshatrapa. Other epithets in lines 11 and 12 tell us that by his own valour he gained, and became the lord of, eastern and western Åkaravanti, the Anûpa country, Ånarta, Surashtra, Švabhra, Maru, Kachchha, Sindhu-Sauvira, Kukura, Aparanta, Nishads and other territories; that he destroyed the Yaudh@yas; and that he twice dufeated Satakarņi, the lord of Dakshiņ&paths, but on account of the nearness of their connection did not destroy him.-The storm by which the lake Sudargana was devastated is stated (in lines 4 and 5) to have taken place on the first of the dark half of Mårgasirsha in the 72nd year according to the actual wording of the text--of Rudrad&man himself; but the meaning clearly is that it took place during the reign of Rudradâman, on the given day in the 72nd year of the era used by Rudradáman (and the Western Kshatrapas generally). With other scholars I feel convinced that this is the Saka era, and taking the year in the ordinary way as an expired year, I find that the date would correspond to either the 18th October, or more probably the 16th November, A.D. 150. Accordingly, our inscription may be assumed to have been composed about A.D. 151 or 152.
The minister Suvisakha, by whom the work of restoring the dam of the lake was carried ont, is called in line 19) a Pahlava and the son of Kulaipa, and is stated (in line 18) to have been appointed by the king (Rudradâman) to govern (the province of) Ånarta and Surashtra. The officials who in earlier times had constructed and perfected the lake under Chandragupta and Agôka respectively were (line 8) the provincial governor, the Vaisya8 Pushyagupta, and the. Yavana king' Tushåspha, governing the province or district under Asoka).
1 Bee his Die Indischen Inschriften, p. 51 f.
Yor quite similar instances compare eg. the first pages of the Daiakumdracharita.
• Sreag. Prof. Bahler in Ind. Ant. Vol. XII. p. 272 1. M. Senart, ibid. Vol. XXI. p. 394 f.; Dr. Bhandarkar's Early Hist. of the Dekkan, p. 28 f.; Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji in Jour. Roy, 4s. Soe. 1890, p. 646 1.; the Bomcay Gazetteor, Vol. I. Part I. p. 84 ff., eto.
• Por some of these names so the Nasik inscription in Arohaol. Suro. of West India, Vol. IV. p. 108, line 2.
I.e. one of the Andhrabhsitys kings, but there is a difference of opinion as to which of them is here intended. • Compare the similar dates of my Northern List, No. 439, etc., and of my Southern List, No. 602.
See Ind. Ant. Vol. XXVI. p. 163. • The Vaily as according to Varahamihirs are people of the western division; see Ind. Ant. Vol. XXII. p. 192.