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JAIN INSCRIPTIONS OF GWALIOR
Dr. H.V. Dwivedi has prepared an exhaustive index of the inscriptions of Gwalior State. They include as many as 850, collected from ancient places like Sivpuri, Bhelsa, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Morena, Gwalior Fort, Narwar, Pawaya, Kutwar, etc.
Earlier to Dr. Dwivedi, Dr. D.R. Bhandarkar had edited a list of several inscriptions from northern India in- Epigraphia Indica published by Government of India (in Vol. Nos. 19-23). They included some of those from Gwalior. Later, the Department of Archaeology, Gwalior State had published many inscriptions in their Annual Reports (G.A.) which covered all those from Gwalior Fort.
Besides these, Kielhorn had prepared an index of inscriptions during the British period. To these, may be added, a number of inscriptions, published by Cunningham in the Annual Reports of the Archaeological Survey of India.
Dr. Dwivedi had utilised the material of the above inscriptions from all published sources and prepared a comprehensive list mostly pertaining to Madhya Pradesh and numbered them from 1-850.
The inscription in each case contains, the following details of date, the place from which the inscription was obtained, whether complete or broken, the number of lines, the language, the king that occurred in the inscription, the purport and the source in which it was published, are shown.
It is from the above list, a separate list of Jain inscriptions from Gwalior Fort alone is prepared. They mainly refer Tomar dynasty of kings, so as to enable the reader mainly to refer to name of the king and the purport of the inscription. See the list incorporated at the end.
From the index prepared, it is clear that the fort had yieldded 21 inscriptions of Tomar kings. Although there are as many as 5, initial kings as per the list given in the Persian account, the one that contributed to the Jain movements was primarily Dungar singh. Evidently, he was the most illustrious Jain devotees in the Tomar kings.
Of the 21 inscriptions listed here, only 7 of them belong to period of Dungar Sen and the rest belong to his son Kirti Singh. From the purport of the inscriptions, it could be easily understood, that it is not the exclusive right of the kings to install Jain images, but the priests, Bhattarakas and even the devotees, had installed them in different regions of Gopachal.
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