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DECEMBER, 1881.)
AN INSCRIPTION AT GAYÅ.
341
AN INSCRIPTION AT GAYÅ DATED IN THE YEAR 1813 OF BUDDHA'S NIRVÅNA,
WITH TWO OTHERS OF THE SAME PERIOD.
BY PANDIT BHAGWÅNLÅL INDRAJI. THE inscription which is the principal subject that this temple was then known by the same
1 of this paper is in a temple of the Sun name it still bears. which stands on the west side of a neat masonry Now the inscription to be noticed is placed tank called Dakshiņa-Månasa, near the on the left-hand side of the door in the front Vishņu-pada at Gayà. This temple has wall of the temple court, and records the erecbeen repaired in later times and seems to have tion of a temple to Buddha, whereas that in been then altered. The shrine and spire are the court of which it is now, is dedicated to ancient and in style resemble the temples of surya. It is therefore probable that this Mahabodhi and Tårå dê vi at Buddha inscription was brought from elsewhere and Gaya. The front court has apparently been inserted where it now is, at the time the built at the same time as the repairs were made, repairs were made. It is possible, however, but the pillars used in it must have belonged to that this temple may have originally been & some older temple. An inscription recording Bauddha one, but having been deserted under the fact of the repairs is placed at the side of the Muhammadans, the Brahmans may have the doorway of the temple, and from it we learn imported into it an image of Surya, and at a that these repairs were carried out by Kula-1 later date, on their solicitation, Kulachandra chandra, grandson of Dalaraja, and may have undertaken the repairs under the son of Sinha rája, of the V y å ghra belief that it was an original Sun temple. family. The work was completed on Satur The inscription was brought to light by day, the 13th day of the dark half of General Cunningham, who, in his first Report, Magha, in Vikrama Samvat 1431, i. e. A. D. only referred to the date, but in a later one' he 1374, during the rule of Firoz Shah at gave a reduced copy of the inscription, with a Dehli.
transcript of the first half line, and the date Kulachandra was probably a petty king, in the last line. He again refers to the date but he did not rule at Gaya, which he seems in his Corpus Inscriptionum (1877) where he only to have visited as a pilgrim. We are not reads it as 1813 and co-ordinates it with told from what place he came, but it is said he Wednesday, 4th Oct. 1335 A. D. With these was king of a Western country. From the exceptions nothing has hitherto been done to form of his name, I conjecture that he may elucidate this inscription. have been a Thakura of some place in the When I visited Gaya in May 1869, I exePanjab or Sindh.
mined all the inscriptions at the place, and this The temple in which it occurs is dedicated to one among the rest, bringing with me a facsimile Surya, and contains an image known as Dak. and a transcript made directly from the ori. shinaditya-Sun of the South. In it we ginal, which I now publish. It is in Sanskrit read that
verse and engraved on a slab of smooth black"The Thakkura Sri Kulachandra.... stone in 25 lines, each 17'' in length, and in repaired the fallen temple of the lord, the wor. | letters resembling the old Bengali alphabet of shipful Dakshinaditya ..." This shows the 12th century A.D.
The modern town of Gaye stands on the left bank of the Phalgu, between two small hills--the Ramagayi on the east and Gay Asirsha on the south, with the Vishnupada temple at its foot. The north portion of the town, now called Sahebganj, is the southern part of the ancient Gay, the site of which is strewn with fragments of antiquity. Between the two parts is a tank known as Uttara-Månssa, on the side of which also stands a temple of the Sun. In contradistinction to this one, that on the south of the town was called Dakshinditya.
Archeological Survey of India, vol. I (1861-62), p. 1, and vol. III (1871-72), p. 126, where he reads the date as 1819. But the fourth figure is undoubtedly 3: see my paper on Ancient Numerals, Ind. Ant., vol. VI. p. 44, col. 8.
Arch. Sur. Ind. Fol. III, pl. XXIV, and p. 126. The plate contains many errors, and no one who had not examined the original could correct them and read it with certainty. In the transcript of the first half line Sarmano and Lakshandya are mislections for Sarmmane and Langhaniya.
Pref. pp. v, vi, ix. In the Reports, he co-ordinated the date to 7th Oct. 1341 A.D., but with the change of the reading of the inscriptional data from 1819 to 1813, he alters the corresponding hypothetical date to 4th Oct. 1335,-the result in either case giving 478 BC, a the date of the Nirvana, which is the one that the General wishos to establish from this inscription.
