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No. 7.]
THREE MAUKHARI INSCRIPTIONS ON YUPAS: KRITA YEAR 295. 45
architect responsible for the yupa at Nandsā seems to have paid scanty regard to the sacred texts; for he has fashioned a pillar entirely circular. None of the pillars at Baḍva has a girdle at the middle; we can, however, see it clearly on the yupas of the Asvamedha coins of Samudragupta and on one of the two Isapur pillars. Our yupas, like all the rest discovered so far, do not show any upavita. Nor do they show any cloths carved round them. Probably it was felt that it would not be easy to show this detail in stone, and so the architects in all cases. discovered so far, have omitted it. Cloths fluttering like banners at the ends of the yupas on the coins of Samudragupta seem to be the ends of the cloths with which the yupa was to be covered. The yupas on these coins have pedestals; no traces of these were discovered near the yupas at Badva. Sacred texts do not recommend them.
The total height of two of our yupas is 13' 3" and that of the third 15' 8"; the length of the shaft underground is about 4' in each case. Each of them has a square chashala about eight inches from the top, as laid down in the sacred texts. The portion above the chashala bends inwards, as is the case with all the other sacrificial pillars discovered so far.
The inscriptions on these yupas have been written not in horizontal lines, as is the case with the Isapur pillar, but in one long vertical line, reading from the top to the bottom, and about 8 feet in length. The inscription on the yupa of Balasimha, however, is written in two such vertical lines on two different facets of the octagonal pillar owing to some natural defect in the stone in the first facet. Each of these lines is 4 feet and 8 inches long. The height of the normal letters is about 1-8", of letters with verticals like ka, ra, etc., about 4", of conjunct letters like kla, sya, etc., 4" and of conjuncts with medial vowels like tri about 6". The letters on the yupa of Balasimha are slightly bigger and broader, and seem to have been engraved by a different mason, copying a manuscript written in a different duct. The Characters bear a general resemblance to those of the third century A. D. in general, and to those on the Nändsā yupa in particular, engraved 13 years earlier. We do not see here any precursors of the Eastern variety forms of the Gupta alphabet. Medial a and è strokes are still indicated by horizontal lines (except in some rare cases like de in Somadeva in inscription B) usually attached at the top. In mo of Mokhareḥ the vowel sign is attached in the middle. Ya has developed a lcop in its left limb, and when the last member of a conjunct, it shows all possible varieties of form. Sometimes it is archaic,-tripartite and with a curved back (cf. sya in suklasya in the first line of the record of Balasimha; in this same inscription, however, is to be seen the relatively later bipartite form in -simhasya). Normally, however, this letter shows a loop on the left. In inscription C, there is the stop m at the end; it is denoted by the normal form of the letter ma, but smaller in size and written below the line as is usually found in the writing of this period.
Numerical Symbols for 200, 90 and 5 occur in each of the three records. The signs for 90 and 5 are the usual ones for the period, but the additional stroke attached to the symbol for hundred in order to convert it into 200 is rather unusual. Instead of a short horizontal stroke being attached to the vertical, in each of the three inscriptions we find the horizontal stroke first talen upwards and then led right across the top of the symbol to more than half its breadth. That this modified symbol stands for two hundred is rendered absolutely certain by its being identical in form with the symbol used in the Nändsa yupa inscription. In the latter record the
1 Ind. Ant., Vol. LVIII, p. 53.
Allan, The Catalogue of the Coins of the Gupta Dynasties, Pl. V, Nos. 9-14.
Possibly the garlands round the top of the Yupas discovered at Isapur may have been intended as substitutes for the upavita.
The inscription on the Bijayagadh pillar is also vertical and written in the same manner. Ind. Ant., Vol. LVIII, p. 53,
