Bihar Sharif Pillar Inscription 1

Alternative title: Bihar Stone Pillar Inscription of Skandagupta.

Author of digital edition: Dániel Balogh (daba).

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

Repository: SIDDHAM (siddham).

Identifier: DHARMA_INSSiddham00047.

File path: XML-Provisional/DHARMA_INSSiddham00047.xml.

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

Edition

⟨1⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] ḥ nr̥-candra Indrānuja-tulya-vīryyo guṇair atulyaḥ [⏑⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨2⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] (ta)syāpi sūnur bhuvi svāmi-neyaḥ khyātaḥ sva-kīrttyā [⏑⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨3⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] (sva)saiva yasyātula-vikrameṇa kumāragup(t)e(na) [⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨4⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] p(i)t¿r̥?ṁś ca devāṁś ca hi havya-kavyaiḥ sadānr̥śaṁsyādi [⏑⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨5⟩ [⏑–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏑⏓] [⏑–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏑⏓] [a]cīkarad deva-niketa-maṇḍalaṁ kṣitāv an-aupamya [⏑–⏑–⏑⏓]
⟨6⟩ [⏑–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏑⏓] [⏑–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏑⏓] (baṭe?) kila stambha-varocchr¿i?ya-prabhā setu maṇḍa […] [||]
⟨7⟩ [–––⏑⏑⏑⏑–⏑–⏑–⏓] [–––⏑⏑⏑⏑–⏑–⏑–] (bhi)r vr̥kṣāṇāṁ kusuma-bhar-ānat-āgra-(śuṁga?)-vyālamba-stavaka [⏑–⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨8⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] bhadrāryyayā bhāti gr̥haṁ navābhra- nirmmoka-nirmu[kta][⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨9⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] skanda-pradhānair bhuvi mātr̥bhiś ca lokān (sa) (suṣya?)[⏑⏑–⏑–⏓]
⟨10⟩ [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑––⏑⏑–⏑–⏓] [⏓–⏑] yūpocchrayam eva cakkre bhadrāryyādi […]
⟨11⟩ […] nd(r?)aguptabaṭe A¿n?śāni 30 5 (tā)mra(kaṭākuḥ kala?) […]
⟨12⟩ […] pituḥ sva-mātur yyady asti hi duṣkr̥taṁ bhajatu tane […]
⟨13⟩ […] k-āgrahāre Anśāni 3 Anantasenenopa […]

Bibliography

First reported in Ravenshaw 1839. Published (with reading and eye copy) in Mitra 1866. Discussed (with new eye copy) in Cunningham 1871, pp. 37–38. Edited in Fleet 1888. Corrections proposed in Majumdar 1944. Discussed in Goyal 1980.

Originally encoded for Siddham in the project Beyond Boundaries (Grant Agreement No. 609823) by Dániel Balogh (2019, № IN00047). Encoding updated to DHARMA conventions by Dániel Balogh.

Secondary

Fleet, John Faithfull. 1888. Inscriptions of the early Gupta kings and their successors. First edition. Vol. 3. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing. Item 12.

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 41.

Bhandarkar, Devadatta Ramakrishna. 1927–1936. A list of the inscriptions of northern India in Brahmi and its derivative scripts, from about 200 A. C.: Appendix to Epigraphia Indica and record of the Archaeological Survey of India, volumes XIX to XXIII. Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of India. [URL]. Item 1548.

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 30.

Agrawala, Prithvi Kumar. 1983. Imperial Gupta Epigraphs (गुप्ताधिराजलेखमण्डल). Ancient Indian Epigraphical Sources (प्रत्नाभिलेखसंहिता) 10, pt. 1 / 2. Varanasi: Books Asia, Distributed by Prithvi Prakashan. Item 38.

Goyal, Śrīrām. 1993. गुप्तकालीन अभिलेख/Guptakālīna Abhilekha (Inscriptions of the Gupta Age). Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Prakashan. Items 196-202.

Display Options Word Wrap Line Numbers Comments Processing Instructions

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<title>Bihar Sharif Pillar Inscription 1</title>

<title type="alt">Bihar Stone Pillar Inscription of Skandagupta</title>

<forename>Dániel</forename>

<surname>Balogh</surname>

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<funder>European Research Council (ERC), grant agreement no 809994</funder>

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<change who="part:daba" when="2020-08-04" status="draft">Initial import: harmonising file structure with DHARMA inscription template v02. Text and comments as inherited from the Siddham archive of January 2019, unless otherwise indicated (by a name and date in the comment). Comments are offered "as is" and do not represent a thoroughly considered or researched opinion.</change>

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<lg n="1" met="upajāti"><!--

Bhandarkar gives the metre as upendravajrā. Here and throughout this inscription I prefer to tag incomplete verses as upajāti, regardless of whether the extant lines are indra or upendra. Sohoni (cited by #Goyal_1980:51-52) believed the first three verses were about Samudra, Candra and Kumāragupta. Goyal disagrees with this because from svāmi-neyaḥ in l2 he concludes that the stanza is about a vassal. He believes that the inscription's author, Anantasena (l13) was the brother of KGI's wife, Anantadevī, on the strength of the Ananta in the name and the mention of svasā in l3, and that the first stanzas give the genealogy of Anantasena.

-->

<l n="c">nr̥-candra Indrānuja-tulya-vīryyo<!--

I suppose from nr̥candra that this stanza is about Candragupta II.

--></l>

<l n="d">guṇair atulyaḥ <seg met="--+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="6" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

</lg>

<lg n="2" met="upajāti"><!--

The metre is defective, as pointed out by both Bhandarkar and Agrawala, in quarter c where svāmi must be pronounced sāmi in order to restore the preceding i to a short syllable.

-->

<l n="c"><unclear>ta</unclear>syāpi sūnur bhuvi svāmi-neyaḥ<!--

This stanza, then, would be about a son of CGII - can svāmin be an allusion to Kumāra? (attested in MW as one of his names).

--></l>

<l n="d">khyātaḥ sva-kīrttyā <seg met="--+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="6" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

</lg>

<l n="c"><unclear>sva</unclear>saiva yasyātula-vikrameṇa</l>

<l n="d">kumāragup<unclear>t</unclear>e<unclear>na</unclear> <seg met="-+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="5" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

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<l n="c">p<unclear>i</unclear>t<sic>r̥</sic>ṁś ca devāṁś ca hi havya-kavyaiḥ</l>

<l n="d">sadānr̥śaṁsyādi <seg met="--+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="6" unit="character"/></seg><!--

Both Bhandarkar and Agrawala print sadā nr̥śaṁsyādi with a space. Surely it's sadā+ānr̥śaṁsya?

--></l>

</lg>

<l n="c"><supplied reason="lost">a</supplied>cīkarad deva-niketa-maṇḍalaṁ</l>

<l n="d">kṣitāv an-aupamya <seg met="-+-+-="><gap reason="lost" quantity="6" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

</lg>

<lg n="6" met="vaṁśastha"><certainty match="../@met" locus="value"/><!--

I cannot figure out the metre of this verse. Bhandarkar (following Fleet) proposes gīti for this and the following stanza; Sircar says "a metre of the jāti type"; Agrawala says both. I'm unable to work out any way the extant text could be fitted to gīti (the line breakups presented by Agrawala certainly seem wrong; Bhandarkar does no bother to show line structure), and I'm quite certain the next verse is a praharṣiṇī. I would assume that this is either a vaṁśastha like the preceding stanza, or a praharṣiṇī like the next one. The pattern does not fit praharṣiṇī, but may fit vaṁśastha if some readings are changed. Need to return to this - either mark it up as prose or figure out a plausible line breakup. Upendravajrā/upajāti is also a possibility.

-->

<l n="c"><unclear cert="low">baṭe</unclear> kila stambha-varocchr<sic>i</sic>ya-prabhā<!--

Agrawala reads a tentative ṇa instead of Bhandarkar's tentative baṭe. I can see both if I really want to, but cannot vote confidently for either. The reading baṭe fits my supposition about the metre, though if this is part of the same name that occurs later, it would be surprising to see it split at the half-verse. I think it would also be possible to read śaila or śilā instead of kila. Compare the long stem of śa in ānr̥śaṁsya above.

--></l>

<l n="d">setu maṇḍa <gap reason="illegible" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> <supplied reason="lost">||</supplied><!--

Instead of setu, I could imagine site (compare the long stem of t in ānata in the next line), and then we could read prabhāsite which would then begin the final quarter, but leave the previous quarter hypometrical.

--></l>

</lg>

<lg n="7" met="praharṣiṇī"><certainty match="../@met" locus="value"/><!--

As for the previous verse, Bhandarkar (following Fleet) proposes gīti for this and the following stanza; Sircar says "a metre of the jāti type"; Agrawala says both. I'm unable to work out any way the extant text could be fitted to gīti, and I'm quite certain this is a praharṣiṇī.

-->

<l n="c" enjamb="yes">vr̥kṣāṇāṁ kusuma-bhar-ānat-āgra-<unclear cert="low">śuṁga</unclear><!--

Perhaps śr̥ṁga is more likely than śuṁga; the ga is problematic in either case.

--></l>

<l n="d">-vyālamba-stavaka <seg met="-+-+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="7" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

</lg>

<l n="c" enjamb="yes">bhadrāryyayā bhāti gr̥haṁ navābhra</l>

<l n="d">-

nirmmoka-nirmu<supplied reason="lost">kta</supplied><seg met="-+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="5" unit="character"/></seg> </l>

</lg>

<l n="c">skanda-pradhānair bhuvi mātr̥bhiś ca</l>

<l n="d">lokān <unclear>sa</unclear> <unclear cert="low">suṣya</unclear><seg met="--+-+="><gap reason="lost" quantity="6" unit="character"/></seg><!--

For the end, Agrawala (Sircar?) reads samya[#k], ignoring the strong and curled bottom mātrā of the first character in this string. Perhaps best to read lokān sa muṁcaty, if the subscript ya belongs to the character following what others have seen as the left part of ṣa and what I see as more like ca.

--></l>

</lg>

<l n="c"><seg met="=+-"><gap reason="lost" quantity="3" unit="character"/></seg> yūpocchrayam eva cakkre</l>

<l n="d">bhadrāryyādi <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/><!--

Bhandarkar and Agrawala both construe verse 10 as ending at cakkre, taking bhadrāryyādi as the first word of prose following it. This would, however, be very strange: we'd expect the extant portion to commence around the beginning of the third, not fourth quarter of an upajāti stanza, as in all lines above. Assuming I'm right, bhadrāryyādi would be unmetrical, so we'd better read bhadrāryya-di or, even more likely once we've dispensed with ādi, bhadrāryya-dī.

--></l>

</lg>

<p><lb n="11"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> nd<unclear cert="low">r</unclear>aguptabaṭe A<sic>n</sic>śāni <num value="35"><g type="numeral">30</g> 5</num> <unclear>tā</unclear>mra<unclear cert="low">kaṭākuḥ kala</unclear> <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> <lb n="12"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> pituḥ sva-mātur yyady asti hi duṣkr̥taṁ bhajatu tane <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> <lb n="13"/><gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/> k-āgrahāre Anśāni <num value="3">3</num> Anantasenenopa <gap reason="lost" extent="unknown" unit="character"/><!--

Bhandarkar (following Fleet) conjecturally reads [#ska]ndaguptabaṭe. Majumdar notes that this is more likely ndra than nda, so perhaps indraguptabaṭa or candraguptabaṭa. Agrawala reads [#ca]ndraguptabaṭe and credits Majumdar and Jagannath. I agree that ndra is quite likely.

--><!--

#Goyal_1980 proposes to read/restore yady asti hi sukr̥taṁ bhavatu tatre... on the basis of Mitra's reading "sukutaṁ" and on the assumption that talking about "the bad deeds of one's own parents is unthinkable".

--></p>

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<p>First reported in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Ravenshaw1839_01"/></bibl>. Published (with reading and eye copy) in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Mitra1866_01"/></bibl>. Discussed (with new eye copy) in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Cunningham1871_01"/><citedRange>37-38</citedRange></bibl>. Edited in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Fleet1888_01"/></bibl>. Corrections proposed in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Majumdar1944_01"/></bibl>. Discussed in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Goyal1980_01"/></bibl>.</p>

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