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कहाऊँ स्तम्भ एवं क्षेत्रीय पुरातत्व की खोज
nearly as potent as the expression 'lord of a hundred kings' would seem to convey, I shall have hereafter occasion to prove by the exhibition of his own name and of that of his predecessor KUMÁRA GUPTA on the coins of Saurashtra or kaitywār on the western extremity of the Indian continent. The death of this prince is here employed as an epoch in a somewhat enigmatical way. According to the ordinary mode of interpretation, the several figures should be set down from the right to the left hand; thus 30+2+1+100 should be written 1001230; but, as this would be evidently ridiculous, I have rather summed the whole together as '133 years after the death of SKANDA'. It does not appear who succeeded him, or whether the Gupta dynasty there terminated; but I think it is open to conjecture that the whole power was usurped by the minister's family, because we find TilA BHATTI, a chief magistrate, erecting the Allahabad pillar, and we here find another of the same name, the opulent BHATTI SOMA, the son of AMILA (BHATTI?) at the head of new race, not to be sure arrogating to themselves the title of rája, but possessing wealth and power and erecting pillars in their own name. Four generation from AMILA, viz. I AMILA, 2 BHATTI SOMA, 3 RUDRA SOMA, 4 MADRA - will give about 33 years to each generation which for.private life may be tolerably near the ordinary average.
. The five Indraso may possibly be the five figures stated by Mr. LISTON to be carved, four on the upper part, and one on the lower of the pillar itself, for there are no other relics in the neighborhood. As the inscription states, it is placed on the high road in a most conspicuous position, although it had hither to escaped the eye of an European. We perceive from this specimen that the alphabetical character had undergone no change since the time of SAMUDRA GUPTA, say in two centuries.
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