Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 33

MARCH, 1919]
ALLEGED SAISUN AGA STATUES
ALLEGED SAISUNAGA STATUES.
BY R. C. MAJUMDAR, M.A., PH.D.; CALCUTTA. IN the Bharhut gallery of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, are preserved two remarkable 1 statues, which, as the label on the pedestal informs us, were originally found at Patna. Although Buchanan discovered them there as early as 1812, they excited little curiosity or interest, till, by some chance & few months ago, they attracted the attention of the assiduous scholar Mr. K, P. Jayaswal. About the end of January last, Mr. Jayaswal showed me the short inscriptions which are incised on he fold of the scarf just below the shoulders on the back of the statues and explained their bearing upon the identity of these. He has since elaborated his ideas in a pepor contributed to the JBORS., March 1919, wherein, on the basis of his reading of the inscriptions, he maintains that the statues represent two Saišunaga Emperors, viz., Udayin and Nandivardhana.
The very great importance of this conclusion is sufficient excuse for a further treatment of the subject. When Mr. Jayaswal first communicated his views to me, I expressed my doubts about their validity on palmographic considerations ; for I was of opinion that the letters of the inscriptions could not be earlier than the Kushan period. As we could not agree on this point, I waited for his forthcoming article which was to contain an elaborate exposition of his views. As soon as this was published I applied to Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar, the officer in charge of the Archaeological section of the Indian Museum, for good impressions of the two inscriptions. With his usual courtesy he not only supplied them to me but also afforded me facilities for reading the inscriptions in the original along with him.
Thus equipped I began to study the subject afresh, and elaborated my conclusions in the form of an article ready for the press. Before, however, it was actually sent for publication. I came to learn that Babu Ramaprasad Chanda was also engaged in studying the inscriptions. We compared notes, and found to our agreeable surprise that we had both come tu the same conclusion regarding the probable age of the characters. In view of the startling theories advanced by Mr. Jaya,wal, the correct determination of the period to which the inscriptions belong, came to be the most vital problem in connection with the statues on which they oocur. The perfect agreement on this point between Mr. Chanda and myself seems to me to be a substantial step in our gradual advance towards the final solution of the
froblem. The very fact that we had both worked out independently to the same conclusion, which was upheld by Cunningham long ago, goes a great way in demolishing the heavy structure so laboriously built up by Mr. Jayaswal. This, in itself, is no small gain, for it will considerably narrow the issues and make the proper understanding of the record a much easier task than before.
I now proceed to set forth my grounds for maintaining, in oommon with Mr. Chanda, that Mr. Jayaewal's estimate of the age of the letters is highly untenable.
“The letters," says Mr. Jayaswal, “presented to me a wonderful problem. They did pot fully tally with characters of any period yet known to Indian Epigraphy. The archaism WA BO marked that four letters, afterwards identified as bh, dh, & and 8, appeared to me to he new forms. To them value could be assigned only on presuming them to be ancestors of such Asokan, letters to which the latter can be carried back on principles of epigraphic evolution" (p. 90).
It thus appears that the central pivot of Mr. Jayaswal's theory is the assumption that the letters did not fully tally with characters of any known period. This seems to be the