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No. 32--NOTE ON BHUMARA PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF HASTIN
(2 Plates ) D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 4. 6. 1958) The stone pillar bearing this inscription was discovered at Bhumară in the former Nagaudh State in Central India by Cunningham who noticed the epigraph in his Arch. Surv. Ind. Rep., Vol. IX, 1879, p. 16, No. 9, with a translation and an illustration (Plate IV, No. 9). The text of the inscription as read by Fleet in the Crop. Ins. Ind., Vol. III, p. 111, runs as follows: 1 Svasti [*] Mahādēva-pād-[a]2 nuddhyātā(ta)-mahārāja-Hasti3 rājyê Amblodē mahārāja4 Sarvvanātha-bhögē Indana5 napträ Väsu-grāmika-puttra6 Sivadāsēna vala-ya7 shti[r*]=uchchhritaḥ [l*] Mahā-Mäghê 8 samba(sarva)tsarā Kārttika-masa9 divasa 10 9 [!*]
As regards the reading of the text, it may be pointed out that the name at the end of line 4 is clearly Indanā and not Indana, while the numerical figure at the end of line 9 is 8 and not 9. The name Sarovanātha is spelt generally as Saruvanātha in the records of the king in question.
The date of the record is quoted in lines 7-9 as the 18th day of the month of Kärttika in the Mahā-Mágha year of Jupiter's twelve-year cycle. This year has been variously taken as corresponding to the Gupta years 165 (484 A. D.), 189 (508 A. D.) and 201 (520 A. D.).! The object of the inscription is to record the setting up of what is called a valayashți (no doubt the stone pillar
bearing the inscription) on the date referred to above in Mahārāja-Sarvanātha-bhöga in Ambloda -- in Mahārāja-Hasti-rājya by Sivadāsa who was the son of the grāmika Väsu and the grandson of Indanā. The word grämika seems to have been used here in the sense of 'the headman of a village."
Cunningham read the word yashți in lines 6-7 of the inscription, which he took to mean 'a sacrificial pillar' But at the same time he observed, "I suppose the pillar may have been set up as a boundary-mark between the territories of the two Rājās (i.e. Hastin and Sarvanātha)." Fleet believed that the expression vala-yashți is a mistake for valaya-yashți which he understood in the sense of a boundary-staff or pillar'. His translation of the principal sentence of the record in lines 1-7 runs as follows: "In [the boundary of] the kingdom of the Mahārāja Hastin who meditates on the feet of [the god] Mahādēva ; at [the village of] Ambloda ; [and] in [the boundary of] the bhoga of the Mahārāja Sarvanātha ;-[this] boundary-pillar has been set up." Like Cunningham, Fleet also suggests that the object of the inscription is to record the erection, at Amblõda, of a boundary-pillar between the territories of the two Mahārājas'.
The two kings mentioned in the inscription are Hastin of the Parivrājaka family and Sar vanātha of Uchchakalpa. Besides the present record, the Parivrājaka king Hastin is knowa from his charters issued in the Gupta years 156 (475 A.D.), 163 (482 A.D.), 170 (489 A.D.) and 191 1 See Bhandarkar's List, No. 1661.
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