Indian Antiquary Vol 49

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

Page 31

FEB., 1920
MUNDESVARI INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF UDAYASENA :
27
It by asserting that “In the Eastern variety of the Northern alphabet the latest use of the right-angled characters seems to be in the Mundesvari inscription." But to my mind this statement has not been proved and should therefore be treated as a personal opinion only. As I have already said, just because this record presents right-angled characters it must be taken to be of an earlier age than the Bodhgayâ inscription of Mahanaman which shows the acute-angled form of letters. And does not Bühler in formulating his theory about acute-angled inscriptions, refer to this record as the earliest example ? 30 Mr. Banerji no doubt anticipates this palæographic difficulty and in his second paper on the alleged spuriousness of the Faridpur grants, 31 meets it, to my mind unconvincingly, by saying that the Bodhgaya inscription "should never be taken to be the prototype of the Eastern variety of the Northern Indian epigraphs of the sixth century A.D.,” because, “it cannot be said that the characters represent the ordinary epigraphic alphabet of the Northeastern India of the sixth century." But what is this specimen of the ordinary epigraphic alphabet of the North-eastern India of the sixth century?' This obviously is the Mundesvari inscription, and the Bodhgaya inscription, therefore, can only become extraordinary because, it presents much more advanced forms' than those of the former. In my judgment this is putting the cart before the horse. Instead of regarding the Mundesvari inscription as prior to the Bodhgayâ record, as logical reasoning would require ug it becomes necessary to maintain that the former is posterior to the latter. The Bodhgayê inscription becomes the ordinary epigraphic alphabet of the North-eastern India of the sixth century if it be but regarded as of a later period. En passant it may be remarked that Mr. Banerji has used the palæography of this record which he places in the seventh century A.D. as one of the evidences to show that the Faridpur grants are forgeries. But if my contention is proved to be right his arguments would lose much of their force. And there seems no objection to taking the documents as original, as Mr. Pargiter has done: This question, however, I leave aside for discussion in a subsequent paper.
Text. 32 1 Om (1) Sambatsare34 triñba[ti)36 [Karttika
divase dv&yjábatimo.56 2 asmin 37 = sambatsara 38-masa-[di]- -
-pûrv vâyâm 39 śri-mahâsâmanta. 3 mah&pratihâra-maharaj.0-yasena-40
râjye kulapati-Bhagudalana-41 4 S-sadevanikåyam" danda-yaka 13.
Gomibhatena prårtthayitva 44 30 See Ind. Pal., p. 49. 31 Four Forged granta from Faridpur -JASB., N.S., Vol. X, pp. 433 4. 83 From the original stone and a set of ink impressions. 33 Expressed by a symbol. 31 Read andateare. 35 Restore trüs gatime which should be corrected to tri miattame. 36 Should be corrected to dva virheatitame. For forms like this, of., e.g. FOI, p. 268, 1. 1. 37 Should be corrected to asyat.
88 Read aanvataara. 39 Restore- divasa- and supply tithau. Cf. such date wordings in other Gupta records. 40 Restore -Odayatend.
41 The last letter seems to have been inadvertently omitted, but afterwards engraved above the preceding letter la in & somewhat smaller form. Road Bhagudalanath au-devanikdyam.
4 Restore dandandyakau Should be corrected to prarthayitya.