Bihar Kotra Stone Inscription of the Time of Naravarman

Author of digital edition: Dániel Balogh (daba).

Language: Sanskrit (san) [Southern Brāhmī (unspecified) (brāhmī_southern_unspecified)].

Repository: SIDDHAM (siddham).

Identifier: DHARMA_INSSiddham00018.

File path: XML-Provisional/DHARMA_INSSiddham00018.xml.

Version: 2026-09-16 10:40 (3083d2d), last modified 2026-09-16 09:24 (c200993).

Edition

⟨1⟩ [si]ddha{ṁ}M śrī¿r?-mmahārāja-naravarmmaṇaḥ ¿o?likarasya-
⟨2⟩ [sva]-rājya-saṁvatsare caturṣu varṣa-śateṣu catu⟨ḥ⟩-
⟨3⟩ [sa]ptateṣu śrāvaṇa-śukla-dvitīyāyāM⟨.⟩ bhaṭṭi-maha-
⟨4⟩ ra-satputtreṇa vīrasenenāyam udapānaḥ khāni-
⟨5⟩ taś cāturddiśaṁ bhikṣu-saṁgham uddiśya sarvva-sa¿tv?ānāṁ
⟨6⟩ tr̥ṣṇā-kṣayāyāstu

Bibliography

Reported in Prince of Wales Museum 1939, p. 12 and Acharya 1939, p. 12. Possibly also noticed and discussed by S. N. Chakravarti in ARASI 1938-39, untraced. Critically edited in Chakravarti [1952] 1941–1942. Summarised in Trivedi & Trivedi 2001, p. 12 (No. 1).

Originally encoded for Siddham in the project Beyond Boundaries (Grant Agreement No. 609823) by Dániel Balogh (2019, № IN00018). Encoding updated to DHARMA conventions by Dániel Balogh.

Secondary

Bhandarkar, Devadatta Ramakrishna, Bahadur Chand Chhabra & Govind Swamirao Gai. 1981. Inscriptions of the early Gupta kings. Corpus inscriptionum indicarum 3, revised edition. New Delhi: Archaeological survey of India. Item 15.

Sircar, Dines Chandra. 1965. Select inscriptions bearing on Indian history and civilization. Volume I: from the sixth century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. 2nd edition revised and enlarged. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. Book III, item 51A.

Tsukamoto Keishō 塚本啓祥. 1996. インド仏教碑銘の研究 I, Text, Note, 和訳 Indo Bukkyō himei no kenkyū I: Text, Note, Wayaku [A comprehensive study of the Indian Buddhist inscriptions, Part I: Text, Notes and Japanese Translation]. Kyōto-shi 京都市: Heirakuji Shoten 平楽寺書店. Item IV. Bihār Kotra 1.

Goyal, Śrīrām. 1993. गुप्तकालीन अभिलेख/Guptakālīna Abhilekha (Inscriptions of the Gupta Age). Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Prakashan. Item 343.

Display Options Word Wrap Line Numbers Comments Processing Instructions

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This inscription is digitally edited by Dániel Balogh from photographs of the original stone (taken at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, in January 2018). Alternative opinions are cited from Chakravarti's edition in EI (Ch), Bhandarkar in CII3rev (Bh) and Sircar SI. Version of January 2019. Comments below are offered "as is" and do not represent a thoroughly researched or considered opinion.

--><p><lb n="1"/><supplied reason="lost">si</supplied>ddha<surplus>ṁ</surplus>M<!--

Bhandarkar (p267n3) reads "siddhaye" at the beginning and says it "seems to have been engraved later and slantingly between lines 1 and 2 about the beginning." According to his editor (i.e. Gai or Chhabra, ibid.), this is incorrect; he says "The reading is siddham, where the final m is written in a diminutive form below the line." Ch also reads siddham and notes that it stands in front of and between lines 1 and 2. The correct reading is in fact ddhaṁM (si is wholly lost), with a superfluous anusvāra before the halanta M, which is what Bhandarkar saw as "ye". The word is perfectly aligned with line 1, aside from the fact that the halanta character is lowered. The redundant anusvāra is a dot like the one in saṁgha (l5), but unlike that in cāturddiśaṁ (also l5), which is a circle.

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<p>śrī<sic>r</sic>-mmahārāja-naravarmmaṇaḥ <sic>o</sic>likarasya<lb n="2" break="no"/><supplied reason="lost">sva</supplied>-rājya-saṁvatsare caturṣu varṣa-śateṣu catu<supplied reason="omitted">ḥ</supplied><lb n="3" break="no"/><supplied reason="lost">sa</supplied>ptateṣu śrāvaṇa-śukla-dvitīyāyāM<supplied reason="subaudible">.</supplied> bhaṭṭi-maha<lb n="4" break="no"/>ra-satputtreṇa vīrasenenāyam udapānaḥ khāni<lb n="5" break="no"/>taś cāturddiśaṁ bhikṣu-saṁgham uddiśya sarvva-sa<sic>tv</sic>ānāṁ <lb n="6"/>tr̥ṣṇā-kṣayāyāstu<!--

L1. Ch (131n9) reads aulikarasya. His editor in EI says the character looks more like o. Bh also reads o. I concur; this exact form is attested in Indoskript for o, and I would expect au to be more complex.

--><!--

L1. Bh (p267n5) claims the character vi is "fairly clear in one estampage" at the end of line 1, and he tentatively restores śe at the beginning of l2 to produce viṁśe. His editor suggests vijaya would be a more plausible restoration. There is definitely no "vi" at the end of line 1, and the character lost (except for the top right corner) at the beginning of l2 was in all probability "sva," on the basis of the Bihar Kotra Cave Inscription IN00224.

--><!--

L3. Bhandarkar reads saptatiṣu. Ch and SI have the correct reading, which is definitely te. This is also identical to the spelling in the cave inscription and parallels in part the weird date in the Gangdhar inscription, IN00076:19.

--><!--

L3. Bh restores tta (to produce mahattara) at the end of line 3. But there is no lost text at the end of the line, and the bit chipped off at the beginning of l4 is in all probability too narrow to have accommodated a lost character. Therefore I read the name as mahara, with Ch and SI.

--><!--

L5. Bhandarkar reads or at least prints satvānaṁ. nāṁ, read by Ch and SI, is clear.

--><!--

L6. The first yā of kṣayāyāstu is vertically compressed and raised. Below it, a large chip has split off the edge of the stone. This defect must have been present before the inscription was created; the bottom right corner of kṣa was actually engraved over the edge of the defect. The second yā is also slightly raised and compressed, but the defect does not extend this far; this character was engraved in this position to let the line curve back gently to the regular level.

--><!--

L6. There is a pair of curved horizontal lines after the last character. Ch notes these may be just a pair of scratches rather than a punctuation mark. I am positive that they are just scratches: it is evident in the stone that they have hardly any depth.

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<p>Reported in <bibl><ptr target="bib:PrinceofWalesMuseum1939_01"/><citedRange>12</citedRange></bibl> and <bibl><ptr target="bib:Acharya1939_01"/><citedRange>12</citedRange></bibl>. Possibly also noticed and discussed by S. N. Chakravarti in ARASI 1938-39, untraced. Critically edited in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Chakravarti1941-1942_01"/></bibl>. Summarised in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Trivedi+Trivedi2001_01"/><citedRange>12</citedRange></bibl> (No. 1).</p>

<p>Originally encoded for Siddham in the project Beyond Boundaries (Grant Agreement No. 609823) by Dániel Balogh (<bibl rend="omitname"><ptr target="bib:Balogh2019_03"/><citedRange unit="item">IN00018</citedRange></bibl>). Encoding updated to DHARMA conventions by Dániel Balogh.</p>

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<bibl><ptr target="bib:Tsukamoto1996_01"/><citedRange unit="item">IV. Bihār Kotra 1</citedRange></bibl>

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