Epigraphia Indica Vol 20

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 86

THE HATHIGUMPHA INSCRIPTION OF KHARAVELA
71
No. 7.-THE HATHIGUMPHA INSCRIPTION OF KHARAVELA.
BY K. P. JAYASWAL, Esq., M.A., BARRISTER AT-LAW, PATNA, AND PROFESSOR R. D. BANERJI',
M.A., BENARES HINDU UNIVERSITY. This inscription is incised partly in front and partly on the roof of the Häthigumphā, an artificial cave, on the southern face of the Udayagiri, a low range of hills situated about three miles from Bhuvanesvar in the Puri district of Orissa. It was noticed for the first time by Stirling in 1825° and was published by Prinsep from an eye-copy prepared by Kittoe in 1837. In 1877 Cunningham published a tracing in the first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. In 1880 the late Raja Rajendra Lala Mitra published another version of this inscription. About this time a cast of this inscription was prepared and taken to the Indian Museum, Calcutta. The first reliable version of the record was issued from the able pen of the late Dr. Bhagvanlal Indraji in 1885. In 1895 and 1898 the late Dr. Bühler proposed certain corrections. The first inked impression was taken by the late Dr. T. Bloch in 1906 and sent to Prof. Kielhorn from whom it passed on to the late Dr. J. F. Fleet, who published two short notes proposing certain corrections in the reading of the 16th line. In the same year Prof. Lüders of Berlin published a summary of this inscription. In 1913 RDB0. examined portions of this record at the request of KPJ., and in 1917 he prepared two inked impressions at the request of the late Dr. V. A. Smith and KPJ., o one of which was published in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 11 and the second sent to Dr. F. W. Thomas, the then editor of this journal. Soon after the publication of the text, KPJ. went to the cave and prepared a revised text of his readings from the rock itself and published the same in 1918 in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society. Sir Edward Gait, the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar and Orissa, who was greatly interested in the decipherment of the inscription, arranged a deputation of RDB., the then Superintendent of the Western Circle of the Archeological Survey of India, to go with KPJ. and in 1919, we both examined the entire inscription on the spot. In the meantime a cast of the inscription was prepared at the suggestion of KPJ. by the Government of Bihär and Orissa. The order of Sir Edward Gait in this respect was executed by the late Mr. H. Panday of the Archeological Survey Department who had accompanied KPJ. formerly and had become familiar with the inscription and the problems connected with it. This cast is now preserved in the Patna Museum. It is as successful a copy as the present condition of the original allowed it to be.. Two impressions on paper were also taken for the Patna Museum. With the help of these materials the study was carried on by KPJ. at Patna. In 1924 both of us again went over the corrections. In 1927 KPJ. published the results of his further studies in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society with new plates prepared
1 [I am sorry to record here his sad and untimely death which took place at Calcutta on 23rd May 1930. Scholars of Mr. R. D. Banerji's type it is difficult to replace.-Ed.).
1 Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV, pp. 313 ff. *J. A. 8. B., Vol. VI, pp. 1075-91, pl. LVIIL. • Pp. 27 f., 98-101, 132 ff., pl. XVII.
Antiquities of Orissa, Vol. II, pp. 16 ff. Actes du Sixième Congrés International des Orientalides, pt. III, section 2, pp. 102-177.
Indian Studies, No. III, p. 13 Origin of Indian Brahma Alphabe, PP. 13 , .J. R. A. 8., 1910, pp. 242 ff. and 824. . Ante, Vol. X, App. pp. 180-61, No. 1348. 10 [Author's initiala). 11 Vol. III, p. I. 11 Vol. IV Pp. 364 f.