Indian Inscriptions

It will be seen that the Mahendrapåla pieces ... produced in Bihar and Bengal ... differ ... from the main trends in Pratihåra art of the time. It is not known how these pieces came to be carved, whether they were carved for Pratihåra patrons but for use in Magadha, or whether some other explanation might reveal both the reasons for the stylistic characteristics and the use of the Pratihåra date" (Huntington 1984: 50).

The earliest presentation of the struggle over Kannauj in the Pāla inscriptions appears in the copperplate charters of Dharmapāla himself. His Indian Museum plate dated year 26 of his reign (c. 806) depicts an event in the struggle as follows: The one who was duly praised by the kings of Bhojas, Matsyas with Madras, Kurus, Yadus, Yavanas, Avantis, Gandhāras and Kīras, bowing [to him] by bending [their] shaking crowns, and whose golden water pot of his own abhiṣeka was raised by the thrilled elders of Pañcāla, the illustrious Kānyakubja king (Cakrāyudha) was installed by him (Dharmapāla), with a mark [put] on [his] charmingly moving eyebrow. 4

Slovakia did not participate in the boom of various Orientalist disciplines in the 19th
and the 20th centuries. Especially Indic studies could hardly develop in the country
during this time. However, despite that, India captured the imagination of several Slovak writers. Herman Klačko (1913–1996), who served as a Czechoslovak consul in Bombay in 1945–1948, was an important organizer of Oriental studies in Slovakia in the 1950s and the 1960s. His creative work was profusely inspired by Indian culture. He authored several India-related books, including two novels Vyšívaná črievica (The Embroidered Shoe, 1956) and Ráno v Bombaji (The Morning in Bombay, 1969). Although Herman Klačko is a writer of minor importance, his writing represent a significant attempt to popularize India and Indian themes to Slovak readers. The paper answers the question how Klačko presented India and its cultural situation to his readers, what image he created and what strategies he employed. Moreover, it is also a contribution to the little researched problem of representation of India in the literatures of the former socialist East-Central Europe.

A Fairly good number of inscribed material are found in South Bihar.During the course of exploration as well as visit of different museums in Bihar. An attempt is made here to discuss the iconographic features of the images and contents of the inscriptions.

The present village of Alagum in Odisha has a single temple and allied institutions located centrally in the village. This is the Garttesvara Siva temple locally also known as Gupteshwar. The architecture of the temple reveals that it was built in the medieval period sometime during the fifteenth-sixteenth century ce. however, the inscriptions identified from the temple complex belong to an earlier date and provide a plethora of information to unfold the history of the village in an altogether different dimension and with vital insights into the cultural landscape of the area. An attempt has been made here to re-read the inscriptions and the issues pertaining to establishment and patronage have also been revisited. A study of the temple architecture and the various observable structural phases within the temple complex has helped in juxtaposing the facts mentioned in the inscriptions. Alagum, besides being an important religious centre was presumably also a significant networking centre for importing and storing cowrie shells. The re-reading of the inscriptions has enabled the authors to reconsider certain issues centering the temple complex and the associated lives of the people.

Indapai or Indpe  is a historically significant village situated at a distance of 5 km to the south of Jamui, the district headquarters in Bihar. The present paper highlights four images of Buddhist faith bearing inscription on its pedestal, preserved in the Chandrasekhar Singh Museum at Jamui. Among them, one can be dated to 5th century C. E., two to 6th century C.E. and one inscription to 7th century C.E., on palaeographical grounds.

The paper aims to highlight the religious interaction between the Buddhists in Srilanka and India in 9th century A.D. as gleaned from an inscription found from Ghuriyavan, Gaya district, Bihar. The inscription is written in Sanskrit language and Siddhamatrika characters.

Inscriptions form the most reliable source for the reconstruction of history. In the present paper the authors have discussed nine inscriptions, which were carved on the back side of the bronze images of Jaina Tirthankara. These inscriptions have its own importance because these are the only inscribed bronze images belonging to Jainism so far discovered in the region. Although two of the Hansi hoard images are inscribed with few words only. All these bronzes belong to the Medieval period (12 th-13 th Century A.D.). During this period massive socio-political change took place in the region and these inscriptions can throw light on the various aspects of history of that time.

It is customary to an Indian while writing down a text, religious or secular, to wish that the writing, the addresse, the reader and he himself be blessed by a sacred symbol or expression, or both, which he accordingly employs at the beginning of the tea. Ln North India, for example, the expressions used are, om, om d*, ir~-harih, Sri-$+ ha$^ furp~am, Sri-g~eSdya nmnah, etc. Some of the expressions used in Tamil Nadu are, om, mmgan tunail Sivan tunai,' etc. Until recently, a symbol was used in Bengal which was called Gji, and was pronounced as ory siddhih or om siddhir=amc. In Tamil Nadu the symbol used, is now calledpilCaiydr&Ci or "GweSa's curln, and the children are even today taught to draw it before they begin to learn the alphabet. In Gujarat this symbol is called bhde meaning perhaps "be blessedn and it is pronounced as such by the ~ainas.* This symbol invariably occurs at the beginning of the Jaina rnanuscripts from Gujarat and R a j~t h a n .~ But the earlier scholars who prepared the catalogues of the Jaina manuscripts had a great difficulty to follow the meaning of this symbol, and they therefore suggested a wrong interpretation of i t Sometime back I had the opportunity to go through the catalogue of the Jaina manuscripts from SW-bourg4 prepared by Chandrabhal Tripathi (TRIPATHI 1975), professor at the Free University of Berlin. I have selected a few items from his catalogue to show how the symbols were used at the beginning of a Jaina manuscript from the south Rajasthan and Gujarat areas.

The topic is not a novel one. Most of the scholars, especially the epigraphists W acquainted with a symbol which occurs at the beginning of a Pala record engraved oh & stone, a copper plate or on the pedestal of an image. This developed form have not been taken into serious consideration regarding the dating of an epigraph oi-more specifically an image by scholars and art-historians when the actual dating is absent.

Az indiai epigráfiakutatás egyik sarkalatos pontja, hogy a feliratkészítés gyakorlata a Mauryadinasztia uralkodójának, Aśoka királynak a sziklákra és oszlopokra vésett ediktumaival kezdődött-e a Kr. e. 3. század közepén vagy egy korábbi időben. A korábbi időre vonatkozóan azonban nincsenek egyértelmű bizonyítékaink, emiatt a kérdést a mai napig nem sikerült kielégítően megválaszolni. Ám ez a kérdés annál is nagyobb jelentőséggel bír, mivel jelen tudásunk szerint Aśoka ediktumai nemcsak a legelső biztosan datálható epigráfiai emlékeink Indiában, hanem az indiai írásbeliség legelső képviselői is. Aśoka feliratainak a datálásához maguk az ediktumok szolgáltatták a kulcsot, hiszen az uralkodó a 13. nagy sziklaediktumában név szerint felsorolja a vele kortárs görög uralkodókat. 2 Az említett uralkodók beazonosítása után -akik sorban II. Antiochos Theos (ur. Kr. e. 261-246), II. Ptolemaios Philadelphos (ur. Kr. e. 285-247), Antigonos Gonatas (ur. Kr. e. 276-239), a kyrénéi Magas (ur. Kr. e. 275-250 körül) és a korinthosi Alexandros (ur. Kr. e. 250-245) 3 -nagy bizonyossággal sikerült Aśoka uralkodását és ezzel együtt a feliratait a Kr. e. 3. század közepére datálni. 4 A mai napig nem került elő azonban olyan epigráfiai emlék Indiában, amely kétséget kizáróan Aśoka ediktumainál korábbi időből származna. Annak a néhány Maurya-korra datált epigráfiai emléknek, amellyel Aśoka ediktumain kívül, illetve Aśoka unokájának, Daśarathának a barlangfeliratain kívül rendelkezünk, elsősorban paleográfiai és nyelvi alapon próbálták meghatározni a korát. 5 Az a törekvés, hogy az írásbeliség megjelenését Indiában egy korábbi időre vonatkozóan is bizonyítsák, egyes tudósokat arra sarkallt, hogy ezeknek a Maurya-korinak tartott feliratoknak egyikét-másikát a Kr. e. 4. század közepére, Aśoka nagyapjának, Candragupta Maurya uralkodásának az idejére datálják, azonban eddig még nem sikerült meggyőző érvekkel előállniuk. Tanulmányomban egy ilyen Maurya-korinak tartott epigráfiai leletet szeretnék bemutatni, amellett érvelve, hogy ez a Maurya-kort követő Śuṅga-korból származik.

Kālañjara or Kāliñjara (Coordinates: 24.99° N, 80.48° E) is one of the most characteristic specimens of the hill-fort, originally hill-shrine in the Bundelkhand region of central India. The fort owed military importance to its elevated mountainous position commanding a very wide area has been a centre of Śaivism from the earliest times. In the month of March-2014, a kiln baked clay seal with name of Mahārāja Śri Pravarasena was discovered while clearing debris from a drainage pit atKālañjara fort. This paper deals with attribution and identification of issuer of this seal with the help of palaeographical study of Vākāṭaka copper-plate inscriptions, seals and coins.

In that inscription, in lines 10-11, Devapala, son and successor of Dharmapala is introduced in the following way: nTter = vitiisa-bhavanam priya-vikramaya~srI-devap7ila iti tat-tanayo vabhuval (verse 6a).5 Ramesh and Iyer translated this half verse as (p. 25), "(He begot) in his wife by name Vikrama, the abode of morality, a son called Devapala...". That means Dharmapala had a queen called Vikrama who was the mother of Devapala. Unfortunately both the scholars are not acquainted with the history and genealogy of the Palas of Bihar-Bengal, or with the inscriptions of the dynasty. Besides, their knowledge of Sanskrit is not adequate.

Sometime back an English art-collector sent me the black-and-white photo of an inscribed copper-plate attached with an inscribed seal. The legend on the seal was not very clear. The gentleman wished to buy this plate fiom the art-dealer 'Bodhicitta' and to donate it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He requested me to study the writing on the plate and let him know the importance and genuineness of it.

This book is an in-depth study of the royal ideology of the Pallava dynasty (South India, 4th-9th c. CE). These Hindu kings have left numerous and diverse sources evincing their conception of the world and the society, and particularly their self-representation of kingship. Through the examination of epigraphical and iconographical panegyrics as well as of coinage and Tamil court poetry (Nantikkalampakam), the argument is that, beside the brahmanical model of subordination of king to brahmin, there existed a specific royal discourse, at times contentious. The crucial point of divergence is the Pallavas' claim to the double status of kings and brahmins. In this respect, kingship asserts its independence vis-à-vis the brahmanical class by incorporating it in its lineage, thus achieving the union of "temporal" and "spiritual" powers. The first volume contains the introduction and the presentation of the sources. The first part is a general presentation of Hindu kingship and the Pallava dynasty (origin, history, art). The second part presents the sources considered as testimonies of the royal discourse, contrasting them with other Pallava-period sources of "local" nature. It concludes with considerations about the royal panegyric and the nature of royal sources (issuers, functions, addressees).