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JUNE, 1917)
A HARAHA STONE-INSCRIPTION
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A HARAHA STONE-INSCRIPTION
BY NANIGOPAL MAJUMDAR, ESQR., CALCUTTA. IN December 1915, Mr. R. D. Banerji, of the Archeological Survey of India, made uver to me two excellent inked estampages of a Maukhari inscription which had not been published before. These were procured from Pandit Hirananda Sastri, then Curator of the Lucknow Provincial Museum, who discovered the inscription at a place, called Hârâhâ, in the District of Barabanki, in the United Provinces. Raja Raghurâja Singh Bahadur, in whose territory the inscription was discovered, has made a gift of it to the Lucknow Museum, where it is now in situ.
The inscription is incised on a slab of stone. The size of the inscription is 2-21" long and 1'-4" broad. It consists of 22 lines. Excepting the engraver's name at the end of the inscription, it is entirely in verse. The language is Sanskrit and represents a highly artificial and complex style of composition. The incision is nicely executed and no letters have peeled off. They belong to the northern class of the later Gupta alphabets, such as were prevalent in the fifth and sixth centuries A. D. They are akin to and may be grouped with those of the Man lasore inscription of Yasodharman, dated A. D. 5324. The object of the inscription is to record the reconstruction of a dilapidated temple of Siva by Saryavarman, son of TÁânavarman, the reigning king of the Maukhari dynasty.
Before the discovery of this inscription, five other records of the Maukhari dynasty were already known :
(1) Two of king Anantavarman, incised on the Nagarjunt Hill-Caves.5 (2) A third inscription of king Anantavarman, incised above the door-way of a cave
on the Barabar Hill. (3) The Jaunpur inscription of king Ibvaravarman.7 (4) A Copper-seal inscription of king Sarvavarman, discovered at Asirgadh, in the
Nimar District, in the Central Provinces.8 The above inscriptions are all undated; so scholars were forced to rely mainly upon palmographical grounds, in order to assign them to a particular period of Indian history. The great importance of the Hârâhâ inscription lies in its being dated. The date is expressed in a chronogram which runs thus :
Ekadakâtirikteshu shatou satitavidvishi
Sateshu saradâm patyau bhuvah Srisana-varmani.—v. 21. The above verse gives the year 611 (600 +11) of a particular era, the name of which is not mentioned. But there is little doubt that it must be assigned to the Vikrama eta, which makes it equivalent to A. D. 554. The reasons in support of this, are simple. King Madhavagupta, we know from the Aphsad inscription, was a contemporary of king Harshadeva, or Harshavardhana, who reigned approximately from A. D. 606 to 647. So Madhavagupta must have lived in the first half of the seventh century A. D. The Maukhari king isánavarman to whose reign this inscription belongs, was a contemporary
1 When I was ongaged in deciphering the inscription, a reading together with an impression of the same appeared in a Hindi monthly, called the Sarasvati.-1322 B. 8., pp. 80-86.
2 Annual Report of the Lucknow Provincial Museum, for the year ending 31st March, 1915. p. 3. s Ibid. for the year ending 31st March, 1916. p. 3 (Appendix D, P. 8) 4 Floot's Gupta Inscrs., pl. XXII.
Ibid. pp. 223-26 ; 226-28.
Ibid. pp. 221-23. 7 Ibid. pp. 228-30. 8.Ibid. pp. 219-21.
• Floet's Gupta Insors., pp. 203-4.
