concerned but only with the light that it may help to throw on the history of the people for whom it was written. Were there any regular chronological history of this part of Northern India, we could hardly fail in the circumstances of this inscription, even if it were without names, to determine the person and the age to which it belongs. We have here a prince who restores the fallen, fortunes of a royal race that had been dispossessed and degraded by the kings of a hostile family-who removes this misfortune from himself and his kindred by means of an able guardian or minister, who contrives to raise armies in his cause; succeeding at last in spite of vigorous warlike opposition, including that of some haughty independent princesses, whose daughters, when vanquished, become the wives of the conqueror-who pushes his conquests on the east to Assam, as well as to Nepal and the more western countries-and performs many other magnificent and liberal exploits, constructing roads and bridges, encouraging commerce, &c. &c.-in all which, allowing fully for oriental flattery and extravagance, we could scarcely expect to find more than one sovereign, to whom the whole would apply. But the inscription gives us the names also of the prince and his immediate progenitors: and in accordance with the above-mentioned account, while we find his dethroned ancestors, his grandfather and great-grandfather, designated only by the honorific epithet Mahá-rája, which would characterize their royal descent and rights the king himself (SAMUDRAGUPTA) and his father are distinguished by the title of Máha-rája Adhirája, which indicates actual sovereignty. And the last-mentioned circumstance might lead some to conjecture, that the restoration of royalty in the house began with the father, named CHANDRAGUPTA, whose exploits might be supposed to be related in the first part of the inscription to add lustre to those of the son. Undoubtedly we should be strongly inclined, if it were possible, to identify the king thus named-(though the name is far from being an uncommon one) with a celebrated prince so called, the only one in whom the Puranic and the Greek* histories meet, the CHANDRAGUPTA or SANDRACOPTUS, to whom SELEUCUS NICATOR sent the able ambassador, from whom STRABO, ARRIAN and others derived the principal part of their information respecting India. This would fix the inscription to an age which its character (disused as it has been in India for much more than a This identity, which after the researches of SCHLEGEL (Indische Bibliothek), and WILSON (preface to the Mudra Raxasa in the 3rd volume of the Hindu Theatre), may be considered as established, has been questioned on very insufficient grounds by Professor HEEREN in the last volume of his admirable Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Principal Nations of Antiquity. The Indian accounts. vary as much from each other concerning CHANDRAGUPTA as they do from tha classical accounts of SANDracoptus. thousand years), might seem to make sufficiently probable,-viz. the third century before the Christian era. And a critic, who chose to maintain this identity, might find abundance of plausible arguments in the inscrip tion: he might imagine he read there the restoration of the asserted genuine line of NANDA in the person of CHANDRAGUPTA, and the destruction of the nine usurpers of his throne and in what the inscription, line 16, tells of the guardian GIRI-KAHLÁRAKA-SVámí, he might trace the exploits of CHANDRA GUPTA's wily Brahman counsellor CHÁNAKYA, so graphically described in the historical play called the Mudra-Ráxasa, in levying troops for his master, and counterplotting all the schemes of his adversaries' able minister RAXASA, until he recovered the throne: nay the assistance of that RáxASA himself, who from an enemy was turned to a faithful friend, might be supposed to be given with his name in liné 10 of the inscription. And the discrepancy of all the other names besidė these two, viz. of CHANDRAGUPTA's son, father, grandfather, and guardian minister, to none of whom do the known Puranic histories of that prince assign the several names of the inscription-might be overcome by the expedient usual among historical and chronological theorists in similar cases, of supposing several different names of the same persons. But there is a more serious objection to this hypothesis than any arising from the discrepancy of even so many names-and one which I can not but think fatal to it. In the two great divisions of the Xattriya Rajas of India, the CHANDRAGUPTA of the inscription is distinctly assigned to the Solar race-his son being styled child of the Sun. On the other hand, the celebrated founder of the Maurya dynasty, if reckoned at all among Xattriyas, (being, like the family of the NANDAS, of the inferior caste of Sudras, as the Greek accounts unite with the Puránas in rêpresenting him,) would rather find his place among the high-born princes of Magadha whose throne he occupied, who were children of the Moon and so he is in fact enumerated, together with all the rest who reigned at Pátaliputra or Palibothra, in the royal genealogies of the Hindus. It is not therefore among the descendants or successors of CURU, whether reigning (like those Magadha princes) at Patna, or at Dehli, that we must look for the subject of the Allahabad inscription; but if I mistake not, in a much nearer kingdom, that of Canyácubja or Canouje. This is well known to have been the seat of an extensive empire on the Ganges, founded by a branch of the Solar family, after the decline of Ayodhya or Oude, the ancient capital of RÁMA and his ancestors. And this opinion is confirmed by the coins lately discovered at Canouje, in which we find characters exactly corresponding to those of our inscription—and the same prefix to the king's name on the reverse of the coin, viz. Mahá-rája Adhirája Srí. One of these, a gold coin, communicated to me by Mr. J. PRINSEP, and exhi : bited in the last number Pl. IX. fig. 24, had struck me, before I saw the engraving, as seeming to bear on the obverse the name of GHATOTKACHA, (not, however the father of CHANDRAGUPTA so named on the pillar, from whom the title of Adhirája is withholden, as I before remarkedbut a reigning prince of the same name and family.) But another gold coin of the same class, in Plate I. fig. 19 of the XVIIth. volume of the As. Res. seems to me an undoubted coin of our CHANDRAGUPTA*. Unfortunately, the catalogues of the children of the Sun, in the Hari-Vansa, the Bhagavat, and the Vansa-lata, as published by Dr. HAMILTON, are far from being so full and ample as those of the Lunar race, (to which the heroes both of the Mahábhárata and the Sri Bhágavat belong :) and neither these, nor I believe the Vishnu and Kurma Puránas, extend their lists to the princes of this particular dynasty. From the first formation of this solar royalty at Canouje to its extinction in the person of JAYA CHANDRA, A. D. 1193, I know no authenticated name but that of YASOVARMAN, said in the Rája Taranginí to have been the patron of the dramatist BHAVABHU'TI, and to have been expelled from his kingdom by the Cashmirian conqueror LILITA'DITYA, about A. D. 720 :-till we come to the last five, viz. the Rahtore princes, whose names from CHANDRADE'VA to JAYACHANDRA, are known from inscriptions and coins, allin modern Devanagari, and posterior by several centuries to our inscription. (A. R. vols. 9,15,17). Until further lists be obtained, therefore, the apparent absence of all date on this part of the column, must preclude any thing like exact determination of the time that elapsed between its hero SAMUDRAGUPTA and Yasovarman. As far as it is possible to form a judgment on internal evidence concerning the age of so short a composition as this, from the enumeration of deities, or the traces of manners that may be discoverable in it, I should be inclined to think that it was written after the hero-worship, which the sacred epics first introduced, had begun decidedly to take place of the simple elementary adoration visible in the ancient hymns of the Védas-yet before it had altogether its present shape, and appar→ ently before the worship of the linga, and that of the sactís, the most impure parts of an impure system, had begun to attain the footing which they *No. 13 bears the cognate name of SASIGUPTA, and Nos. 5, 7, 12, 17, &c. contain names, more or less distinct, of others of the same dynasty.—Mr. Prinsep, whose attention I called to those coins, thinks also that No. 12, which is in his possession, bears the name of our SAMUDRAGUPTA: and indeed the resemblance is sufficiently striking to authorize the belief. “on the Arm's † Unless indeed the mysterious isolated words at the end, bank or shore," should be thought to inclose a date. According to some numeral rules used amongst Hindu mathematicians, these words might denote 22: and this applied to the era of VICRAMAʼDITYA, the usual era in those parts, would bring us to B. C. 34. But I need not observe how slippery such a conclusion must be. had in India at the period of the first Mahometan invasions. While the distinction of works and of spiritual science, as taught in the Upanishads, and pervading all the literature of the Hindus, is alluded to more than once in the inscription ;-the Brahmans have that honor as spiritual superiors which we find assigned to them in the Rámáyana and Mahábhárata-not that excessive superiority and extravagant homage which in subsequent ages they claimed from princes: the Brahman here contributes to the honour of the king, not, as in some later inscriptions, the king to the honour of the Brahmans. But I cannot forbear from quoting at length the passage of the Mahábhárata to which allusion is made in line 28 – proving, that at the date of this inscription, the sacred epic of VYA'SA was regarded and quoted in nearly the same manner as in later ages. The passage is from the 118th canto of the BHISHMA-parva, describing that hero's death, surrounded by the chiefs of both the rival branches of the house of CURU : and is as follows: भीमस्तु वेदनां धय्यन्निग्टह्य भरतर्षभ । च्अतिष्ठत् प्राञ्जलिः प्रकः किं करोमीति चाब्रवीत् ।। १६ ।। चभ्यभाषत धर्मात्मा भीष्मः प्रीतो धनञ्जयं ॥ १७ ॥ दह्यतीव शरीरं मे संटनस्य तवेषुभिः । ममणि परिरूयन्ते मुखं च परिशुष्यति ॥ १८ ॥ त्वं हि शक्तो महेष्वास दातुमम्भो यथाविधि ॥ १९ ॥ अर्जुनस्तु तथेत्युक्तेा रथमारुह्य वीर्य्यवान् । अधिज्यं बलवत्कृत्वा गाण्डीवं व्याक्षिपद्वनुः || २० ॥ S नस्य ज्यातलनिर्घोषं विस्फूर्जितमिवाशनेः । वित्रसुः सर्व्वभूतानि सव श्रुत्वा च पार्थिवाः ॥ २१ ॥ ततः प्रदक्षिणं कृत्वा रथेन रथिनां वरः । शयानं भरतश्रेष्ठं सर्व्वशस्त्रभृतां वरं ॥ २२ ॥ सन्धाय च शरं दीप्तमभिमन्त्र्य स पाण्डवः । उत्पपात ततो धारा वारिणेो विमला कर्म्मणा तेन पार्थस्य शक्तस्येव विकुर्व्वतः ॥ २६ ॥ तत्क प्रेच्य बीभत्समतिमानुषविक्रमं ।। २७ ।। But BHI'SHMA, O chief of the Bháratas, with firmness suppressing the sense of pain, while burning with the arrows that pierced him, and breathing hardly like a serpent-nor only with body inflamed, but with mind also maddened with the wounds of those sharp weapons, exclaimed only "Water!" when he saw the princes approaching. Then, O king, did those Xattriyas collect immediately from every quarter food of various kinds, and goblets of cold water: upon seeing which the son of Santanu sadly exclaimed, “Not now can such ordinary human pleasures be tasted by me: for now cut off from mankind, I am stretched upon my arrowy* bed, and lie expecting the hour when the sun and moon shall be closed to me." But having spoken thus, O BHARATA ! chiding by his words the assembled chiefs, the son of SANTANU added, “I would see ARJUNA." Upon which, he of the mighty arm approaching with salutation his grand-uncle, and standing with hands joined and body bent forward, said, "What shall I do?" And the pious BHISHMA, with pleasure beholding the great Pándava chief standing before him, answered, "My body burns, covered as I am with thy arrows, my vitals are racked, my mouth is dry: bring some water, ARJUNA, to my tortured frame, for thou of the great bow art able to give me such streams as I require." The brave ARJUNA thus addressed, having mounted his car, and fitted his bow-string, bent his strong bow called Gandiva, for the intended shot : and on hearing the twang of that bow-string, a sound as if bursting from the thunder-bolt of INDRA-all creatures trembled, even all those chiefs themselves. Then he, the best of charioteers, having wheeled his car in a reverential circle round BHISHMA on his right, the prostrate son of BHARATA, best of all hurlers of weapons-and having taken a flaming arrow, and breathed a magical sentence (mantra) over it, and fitted it to his bowthe whole world looking on-did with that dart of thunder pierce the whole earth close on the right side of BHISHMA and thence sprung up a pure beauteous stream of cold water, like the nectar of the immortals, of divine scent and flavour: and with this cold stream did he powerfully refresh BHISHMA, prince of the CURUS, of godlike works and prowess. With this work of the prince ARJUNA,as of a mighty transforming magician, the lords of the earth were seized with extreme astonishment, beholding it as a deed equally compassionate and transcending all human power. * The sara-sayya, or arrowy bed, was assumed as a voluntary penance in imitation of BHISHMA by a singular devotee, who was living at Benares in the year 1792, a curious account of whose travels and adventures, together with a portrait of him stretched on his pointed bed, was given by Mr. JONATHAN DUNCAN in the 5th volume of the Society's Transactions. [In that account, p. 5, Bhikma Pitámaha, is merely the Hindui mode (for) of writing "BHISHMA the grandsire," or rather grand-uncle of the contending chiefs of the houses of DHRITARASHTRA and PANDU. |