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No. 12)
NOTE ON BADAGANGA INSCRIPTION OF BHUTIVARMAN
63
reading of the inscription, published in the same journal, Vol. X, 1943, pp. 63-67. In his article published above, Dr. Bhattasali speaks of the unsatisfactory state of the preservation of the record and of the difficulty with which he succeeded in deciphering the text. A photograph of the inscription as well as an inked impression was published to illustrate Dr. Bhattasali's paper in the Epigraphia Indica. The photograph is, however, absolutely unreadable while the impression was the subject of the following editorial comment from the Government Epigraphist for India: "The impression reproduced here is much doctored': An attempt is being made to procure & more faithful impression which will be published when available". The attempt of the Government Epigraphist to secure a good impression of the record was unfortunately not successful till the beginning of 1952 when I was asked to examine and copy the inscription in the course of my tour in Eastern India. Accordingly I visited Nowgong, the headquarters of the District of that name in Assam, on the 5th March 1952 and left for the findspot of the inscription the same day. From Nowgong I reached Dabakā on the river Jamunā, which lies 24 miles away on the motor road from Nowgong to Hozãi. There I learnt that the inscribed rock lies in the vicinity of Dakmakā (from Mikir Danmukāk, a bend ') on a rain-bow like bend of the river Dikharu or Dikhru (from Kachhari di, water'), 16 miles away on the other side of a reserved forest. Fortunately, the Forest Department of the Assam Government has now constructed a motorablo road from Dabakā to Dakmakā, although a wooden bridge on a small stream at Dengio (114 miles from Dabakā and 5 miles from Dakmakā) was being reconstructed after dismantling when I had to travel by that road. I had therefore to reach Dakmakā from Dengão on foot. The inscribed boulder lies on the Badagangā which is a small stream joining on the one hand the Härkäthi and on the other the Dighalpāni. The place is half a mile from Tekegão which is about 2 miles from Dakmakā. Thus I found the inscription about 19 miles from the Dabakā Bazaar, although Bhattasali has given the distance of the place as about 14 miles north-east of Dabaka (written by him Dabokā). I was really very glad to find that the epigraph was in a much better state of preservation than that suggested by Dr. Bhattasali's photograph. It is necessary to record here in this connection that in reaching the inscribed boulder I received considerable help from the officers of the Forest Department of the Government of Assam at Nowgong, Dabakā, Dengão and Dakmakā.
The main point in my comments on Dr. Bhattasali's reading of the Badaganga inscription, to which reference has been made above, concerned the second symbol in the date of the record. Bhattasali believed that it is an I-type form of 30, while I suggested that it is an 8-type form of 40. It is gratifying to me that all epigraphists who had occasion to give their opinion on the reading of the symbol have supported my reading against Bhattasali's. But an examination of the original inscription and its impressions prepared by myself revealed to me several mistakes not only in Dr. Bhattasali's transcript but also in my comments on it, based as they were on an unreliable illustration of the record.
The Government Epigraphist for India rightly noticed that considerable doctoring has rendered the impression published along with Dr. Bhattasali's paper absolutely unreliable for scientific purposes. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the whole inscription can be more or less easily read from my impressions. It is also seen that Dr. Bhattasali's attempt to show the letters clearly on the impression by means of inking the supposed blank space outside their incision has resulted in many letters appearing in his doctored impression not as they actually are in the
1 My comments on Bhattasali's reading and interpretation of the Badaganga and Kulkuri inscriptions were first offered in a note added to my paper on the reign-periods of Samudragupta and Chandragupta II, published in the Chaitra (B.S. 1348) issue of the Bhäratavaraha (Bengali), Calcutta.
See above, Vol. XXVII, p. 23 for the viows of K. N. Dikshit and N. P. Chakravarti and IHQ, Vol XXII, p. 113 for the opinion of Jagannath.
