Epigraphia Indica Vol 34

Author(s): D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 36

13
No. 2]
BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS FROM MATHURA
as well as in verse 1. Thus the installation of a Buddhist image by Udaka or Udoka seems to have been done on behalf and for the merit of king Nripamitra.
The prose endorsement at the end seems to state that the stanzas were the composition of Dinna. Thus the fragmentary inscription not only mentions a hitherto unknown king of the Mathura region, by name Nripamitra, and his Buddhist subordinate or officer named Udāka or Udoka, but also reveals the name of Dinna who may have been a poet at the said king's court. Poet Dinna's name, which is a Prakrit word standing for Sanskrit datta, 'given', is not known from any other early source.
The question now arises as to who king Nripamitra was and when exactly he ruled over the Mathura region. The earliest Gupta inscriptions at Mathura belong to the time of Chandragupta II (376-413 A.D.) though the area seems to have been annexed to the Gupta empire by his father Samudragupta (c. 340-76 A.D.) sometime about the middle of the 4th century A.D. Since the hold of the Guptas on the Mathura region appears to have continued at least down to the latter half of the 5th century A.D., Nripamitra, who apparently did not belong to the Gupta family, would have flourished either about the middle of the 4th century or about the close of the 5th. Since Gupta rule in the said region appears to have been overthrown by the Hūņa king Toramāņa, who ascended the throne sometime after 484 A.D., and his son Mihirakula, who was defeated by king Yasodharman of Mandasor before c. 532 A.D., and since the palaeography of the inscription under study appears to be earlier than the middle of the 6th century, it may be tempting to assign king Nipamitra of the Mathura region to a date about the middle of the 4th century. As it is usually believed that the Guptas conquered the Mathura region from the Nagas, it is in that case not impossible to think that Nripamitra belonged to the Naga lineage. But names ending in the word mitra are not known to have been popular with the Nagas. It has, moreover, to be admitted that the medial i marks in the inscription appear to be somewhat later than the middle of the 4th century A.D. We have therefore to think of the possibility of Nripamitra having flourished in the Mathura region about the close of the 5th century as a semi-independent feudatory of the Guptas.
1 Nripam[i]tra-bhartu[s*]-tesha
ch[e]-Uda(kasya [*]
TEXT:
praksh[i]nānu... []*]mas-sad-dharma-ru
2 Yakta(t-ka)rayitva (tva) Nripamitra-bhartrā prāpa t-tasya nṛip-adhipasya hitam para
3 treha cha samvidaddhyā[t] [||*]*
also.
4 kritir-Dinnasya [*]
1 Matrivishnu was ruling at Eran as a feudatory of Budhagupta in 484 A.D. while his successor Dhanyavishnu was a feudatory of Toramana in the latter's first regnal year. Cf. Select Inscriptions, pp. 326-27, and pp. 396-97. The inscription referring to Yasodharman's victory over Mihirakula does not bear any date. But one of Yasodharman's epigraphs is dated in 532 AD. Cf. ibid., p. 395, verse 6; pp. 386 ff.
--[1]
From impressions.
It is possible to conjecture that a Siddham symbol was engraved at the beginning of the line.
The intended word may be toshab.
The intended reading and the meaning of the word are difficult to determine. Can it be prakshin-anu! The metre of the stanza appears to be Arya. The reading of the last four syllables may be 'r-Udokasya
The metre of the stanza is Upajali.
• The following letters are engraved about the end of line 3.