Kavyanushasana Part 2

Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Rasiklal C Parikh, Ramchandra B Athvale
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 47

Kavyanusasana The oldest record on this rock is the 'Dhammalipi' of Asoka giving his code of fourteen regulations in the Prākṣta language. The second commemorates the repairs done by Mahākshatrapa Rudradāman to the lake Sudarsana ( meaning' good to look at '), constructed by Pushyagupta – the governor of Gujarāt appointed by Chandragupta Maurya, which had become' durdarsana' ('not good to look at'), the dam having crashed on account of the huge floods of Girnar rivers. The third commemorates a similar event three centuries later,- the floods having again damaged the lake, the repairs this time being done by Skandagupta of the Gupta dynasty,
These three inscriptions - of Asoka, Rudradāman and Skandagupta-carry us respectively to the periods 274 - 237 B. C. (C. H. I Vol. I p. 698 ), 150 A. D. and 456 A. D. (E. H. 1. 3rd. edition ). Thus we find that we are given a glimpse in the past history by the inscription of Rudradāman, which discovers Gujarāt to be a province of Chandragupta Maurya (274-237 B. C.). Girinagara was then probably the provincial capital; while the southern capital of the Mauryas seems to have been Sopārā' (the B. G. p. 14). The governor of the province was one Pushyagupta. He belonged to the Vaişya caste and probably was a brother of one Chandragupta's queens. He, it was, who first built the Lake Sudarsana or the Lake Beautiful, near the city of Girinagara, probably at the foot of the mountain Urjayat -as Girnar was then known. It was primarily meant for irrigation purposes. Being a 'Jalāşaya' or an 'abode of waters' it must have become a sacred place; as all such places generally become in India. This Lake Beautiful must also have been a place of