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No. 23]
BHADRAK INSCRIPTION OF GANA; REGNAL YEAR 8
173
in both the cases) remain. Only the upper parts of the next seven letters are visible and they suggest the reading: adhiväsaka Bhada. The second half of the line, in which some of the letters are damaged, seems to read: Apavasa [Mahasa]ra Ghali Aḍasama [1]. The last two letters, sa ma, suggest a Brahmanic name ending in the word sarman exactly as Agisama-Agnisarman. Adasama may be Sanskrit Atagarman. It is thus possible to think that this name is preceded in the record by other names, viz. Bhada (Sanskrit Bhadra), Apavasa (possibly Sanskrit Apavarsha), Mahasara (possibly Sanskrit Mahäsära) and Ghali (cf. Sanskrit Khalin). The possibility of the existence of the word adhivasa(si)ka in the damaged first half of the line would suggest that it was preceded by the name of the locality where the persons mentioned resided. But what their relation was with the grant recorded in the inscription cannot be determined with certainty. If they were merely witnesses to the transaction, they were probably residents of a locality near the gift land at Pănida.
Mahārāja Gana, during whose reign the inscription was engraved about the second half of the third century A.C., is not known from any other source. He seems to have been a ruler of the ancient Utkala country bounded by the rivers Vaitarani1 and Kansai (ancient Kapisa) and lying between the lands inhabited by the Vangas and the Kalingas. He was probably an independent monarch like the kings of Pushkarana (modern Pokharna on the Damodar in South-West Bengal), who are known from the Susunia inscription. As already indicated above, king Chandravarman of Pushkarana was overthrown by the Gupta emperor Samudragupta about the middle of the fourth century A.C. Whether the Utkala country was also conquered by Samudragupta about the same time is as yet unknown. The Sumandala plates of the Gupta year 250 (569 A. C.), however, show that imperial Gupta suzerainty was acknowledged in Kalinga and presumably also in Utkala. Although it is difficult in the present state of our knowledge to ascribe the conquest of Kalinga and Utkala to a particular Gupta monarch, it is possible to suggest that the event took place before the death of Kumaragupta I, grandson of Samudragupta, in 455 A.C., as the successors of that monarch do not appear to have been powerful enough to effect the annexation of such far off territories. These conquests should better be attributed to Samudragupta or to his son Chandragupta II Vikramaditya described as kritsna-prithvi-jay-ärtha in one of the Udayagiri inscriptions (cf. also the reference to his dig-vijaya in the Meharauli inscription). As however Utkala is not mentioned in the Allahabad pillar inscription in connection with the victorious campaigns of Samudragupta, the second alternative seems preferable. Whether the rulers of Aryavarta, mentioned in that record as overthrown by the Gupta monarch, included a ruler of Utkala cannot be determined.
We have said that the eighty measures of land granted by Mülajapa were apportioned in a locality called Panida. The place may not have been far away from Bhadrak, near which the inscription has been found. I have not succeeded in identifying the locality.
TEXTI
1 [Siddham] [*] Mah[A][A]ja-air[i]-Ganasa sath 81] [Malajap[n] d[8]vå 3 dat[]
1 Cf. Mahabharata, III, 114, 3; above, Vol. XXVIII, p. 179.
Cf. Raghuvamba, IV, 38; above, loc. cit. after the name of an allied tribe of that name.
Raghuvamba, loc. cit.
Utkala came later to be known as the Odra country no doubt The Odras may have originally inhabited parts of Northern Orissa.
Above, Vol. XXVIII, pp. 79 ff.
Cf. Select Inscriptions, pp. 272, 275 ff.
In this connection, it may be noted that the Meharauli inscription attributes to Chandragupta II the conquest of a country on the Southern Sea.
From the impressions kindly supplied by Dr. Chhabra. Expressed by a symbol which is faintly visiblo
