Uttar Hindusthan ma Jain Dharm

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah, Fulchand Doshi, Chimanlal Dalsukhbhai Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

Page 203

W
hen.
986
ઉત્તર હિંદુસ્તાનમાં જૈનધર્મ છેહિંદી તવારીખની આ બાબતને લગતું આ સિવાય અન્ય કોઈ ઐતિહાસિક યા અનૈતિહાસિક સાધન નથી.
નીચે નોંધમાં જણાવ્યા પ્રમાણે ફલીટ અને બીજાઓની વિરુદ્ધ અન્ય કેટલાક વિદ્વાને શિલાલેખની સેળભી લીટીમાં મૌર્ય સંવતને ઉલેખ જુએ છે અને એને કલિંગના ઇતિહાસને આ અગત્યને સમય નક્કી કરવાનું એક જ સાધન માને છે. પિતાની નવીન શાધના આધારે જાયસ્વાલ એક વખત આ મતના આગ્રહી હતા, પરંતુ તેમણે પણ શુદ્ધ
1. This note gives, more or less in a chronological order, the names of different scholars who touched this inscription from one or other point of view. Mr. A. Sterling first discovered it, and with the help of Colonel Mackenzie took a facsimile of this interesting document in 1820 and published it, without translation or transcript, in 1825 with his most valuable article on An Account, Geographical, Statishical and Historical, of Orissa proper or Cutack (A. R., xv., pp 313 ff., and plate); then James Prinsep published it for the first time in 1837 on the basis of the correct facsimile of Lieutenant Kittoe, and according to him the date of the inscription could not be earlier than 200 B.C. (J. A. S. B., vi., pp. 1075 ff., and plate LVIII).
A further lithograph of the inscription we find by Cunningham in C.L.L., 1., (1877), pp. 27 ff., 98-101, 132 ff., and Plate XVII; but it appears that Prinsep's interpretation drew the attention of Oriental scholars to its importance and historic worth. Rajendralal Mitra copied his transcripts and translations, and published it in a revised form, in his great work on the Antiquities of Orissa, in 1880, pp. 16 ff., with a facsimile; and the date of the inscription, according to him, ought to be between 416-316 B.C. A few years after Dr Mitra, the late Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji, published for the first time a workable version of this important inscription, in the Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Orientalists, held at Leyden in 1885, and according to him the date of the inscription is 165 Maurya era or 157 B.C. (Actes Six. Congr. Or. a Lcide, pt. iii., sec, ii., pp. 152-177, and plate). This was followed by Bühler in 1895 and 1898 in Indian Studios, No. III, p. 13, and in On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet, pp. 13 ff., respectively, but he merely proposed certain corrections. This fixing of the date by the late Pandit, on the basis of a reference to some Mauryan date in line sixteen of the inscription had been accepted up till now by most of the modern school of antiquarians, headed by Vincent Smith, K. P. Jayaswal, R. D. Banerji and others; but it was Fleet and a few others after him that protested against such a reading of the said line, though he accepted that not a single voice had been raised against the interpretation of Pandit Indraji (see Smith, Early History of India, p. 44, n. 2 (4th ed.), and also in J.R.A.S., 1918, pp. 514 ff.; Jayaswal, J.B.O.R.S., 1., p. 80, n. 55, iii., pp. 425-485, iv., pp. 364 ff.; Banerji (R. D.), J.B.O.R.S., iij., pp. 486 ff.; Dubreuil, Ancient History of the Deccan, p. 12; Jinavijaya, Pracin Jaina Lekha Sangraha, i., which wholly deals with Khāravela and agrees with the school of Jayaswal; and Konow, A.S.1., 1905 1906, p. 166. According to him the inscription contained a date in the Maurya era). Reviewing this volume in his first note in the J.R.A.S., 1910, pp. 242 ff., Dr Fleet says: "In the course of his remarks Dr Konow has mentioned the Hathigumphā inscription of Khāravela, and has observed, as an obiter dictum, that 'It is dated in the year 165 of the Maurya era.' We may take the opportunity of saying that it is a mistake, and has no basis except in Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji's treatment of a passage in line 16th of the record.”
Now we shall refer to Fleet and others of his class. In 1910 Professor H. Liders published in E.I., X., Lüders' list, No. 1345, p. 160, a summary of the inscription, and stated there was no date in the record. This was followed by two short notes from the late Dr J. F. Fleet in J.R.A.S., 1910, pp. 242 ff. and 824 ff. As we saw above, Dr Fleet had his own doubts about