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SEPTEMBER, 1891.] GAYA INSCRIPTION OF VIKRAMA-SAMVAT 1429
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ramah, lines 1-5 are in verse; the greater portion of lines 6-8 is in prose; and the remainder. excepting the concluding words sidulkir=astu láryé satám=iti, is again in verse. In respect of grammar and orthography it may be noted that two of the verses do not admit of a proper construction, and that the letter bis denoted by the sign for v. As regards lexicographs, the word kirti is used in the now well-known sense of a temple,' in lines 5 and 8; and line furnishes the word śásanika, apparently denoting an official who had to do with sásanas, or charters.
The inscription, after two verses in honour of Ganapati and the Sun, records (in lines 2-5) that, in the Vikrama year denoted by the (nine) planets, a pair, the (four) ages and the moor, i.e., in Vikrama 1429, while Piyarója-saha, the lord of Dhili, was ruling the land, Kulachanda, then governor (adhikúrin) of Gaya, built (or rather, repaired) the temple of Dakshinárka, at Gaya. And it relates that Kulachanda was a son of Hémaraja, a descendant of the Kshatriya Dala who lived in the western country and was born in the family of a prince Vyaghra, or Vyaghraraja. This part of the inscription which is called a prasasti, composed by Sir[i]sêna, closes with two verses which invoke the divine blessing on the family of Kulachanda, the prince (nripa) descended from Vyâghra.
What is stated before in verse, is repeated in a plainer and more businesslike manner in prose, in lines 6-8. Here we are told that on a certain date which will be given below, in the reign of the western Sultan Piyardja-saha, conspicuous by his birudas Asimapaurusha and so forth, the Thakura Kulachandaka, - who held the post of governor of Gaya, who followed in the footsteps of the prince Vyaghra, and was a son of the Thakura Hómaraja and a son's son of the Kshatriya, the Thakura Dala, a devont worshipper of Vishņu, - at the sacred place of Gaya, belonging to Dakshinag&ra in the country of Udandapura, restored the temple of the holy Dakshiņditya which had fallen into disrepair. The prose portion states besides that this inscription was written by the Sasanila of Gaya 'Srisêna (whom I take to be the person named Sir[i]sêna above a son of the Kayastha, the ?'hakura Karnasena ; and that the architect employed on the reps of the temple was Haridasa.
Lines 9 and 10 contain two benedictive and imprecatory verses, and the inscription ends with a short prose passage of similar import.
The date, referred to above, is Sani-vasara or Saturday, the 13th lunar day of the dark half of Mâgha, of the Vikrama year 1429; and corresponds, as I have shown above, p. 138, - for Vikrama 1429 expired and the purnimánta Magha, — to Saturday, the 22nd January, A.D. 1373. For the peculiar way in which the supposed founder of the Vikrama era is spoken of in line 6, we may compare the date of a Bengali MS. of the Vikrama year 1503, which I have given in full ante, Vol. XIX. p. 180, No. 131.
The localities mentioned in the inscription are, besides Dhili (i.e. Delhi), Gaya, Dakshinagara, and the country of Udandapura. Of these, Delhi and Gaya are well-kuown. The word Dakshinagara, denoting the district in which Gayî was situated, I have not met with elsewhere. Udandapura should perhaps have been spelt Uddandapura, and so the name apparently occurs in another Gayà inscription, ante, Vol. IX. p. 143. Sir A. Cunningham who has recognised the same na under the form of Otantapura, in Târânâtha's account of the Magadha kings, at first was c. opinion that the town intended might be the present Tandwa or Bishenpur Tandwa, about fifteen miles east of Gayà. Later, however, he has adopted Mr. Beglar's suggestion that up to the time of the Muhammadan conquest Udandapura was the proper name of the town of Bihar in the Patná District of Bengal, which is said to be still known as Dand-Bihar.
? i.e. Firuz Shah, A.D. 1951-1888.
3 Compare Archæol. Survey of India, Vol. III. p. 129, and Plate xi; Vol. VIII. p. 75: and Vol. XI. p. 185: ante, Vol. IV. p. 866; Kero's Buddhismus, German Ed., Vol. II. p. 545; and Sachau, Alberuni's India, Vol. II. p. 314.
