Sarnath Buddha Image Inscription of the Time of Kumāragupta II

Author of digital edition: Dániel Balogh (daba).

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

Repository: SIDDHAM (siddham).

Identifier: DHARMA_INSSiddham00039.

File path: XML-Provisional/DHARMA_INSSiddham00039.xml.

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

Edition

⟨01⟩ (siddham?)⟨1⟩ varṣa-śate guptānāṁ sa-catuḥ-paṁcāśad-uttare bhūmiṁrakṣati kumāragupte māse jyeṣṭhe (dv)i(t)ī[yā]yāM||⟨2⟩ bhakty-(ā)varjjita-manasā yatinā pūjārtham abhayamitreṇapratimāpratimasya guṇai(r a)pa(re)yaṁ (kā)ritā śāstuḥ||⟨3⟩ mātā-pitr̥-guru-pū(rvvaḥ) puṇyenānena sa¿tv?a-kāyo yaMlabhatām abhimatam upaśama-ma(h)(āvaha?) [****] (sukhāya)||

Bibliography

First reported by Hargreaves (with plate of the image, and transliterated text by Y. R. Gupte) in Marshall 1920, p. 124.

Originally encoded for Siddham in the project Beyond Boundaries (Grant Agreement No. 609823) by Dániel Balogh (2019, № IN00039). 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 34.

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 1281.

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 31.

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 46.

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. Sārnāth 199.

Goyal, Śrīrām. 1993. गुप्तकालीन अभिलेख/Guptakālīna Abhilekha (Inscriptions of the Gupta Age). Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Prakashan. Items 169-170.

Display Options Word Wrap Line Numbers Comments Processing Instructions

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<title>Sarnath Buddha Image Inscription of the Time of Kumāragupta II</title>

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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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<ab><lb n="01"/><unclear cert="low">siddham</unclear><!--

None of the editions I've seen print this, but there are clearly two small akṣaras above and beginning slightly to the left of line 1. They look like si and ddha (but could be just about anything else as well), with possibly a halanta m merged into the superscript r of varṣa in l1.

--></ab>

<lg n="1" met="āryā"><!--

Agrawala (following Sircar) says the metre of the first stanza is udgīti, and to achieve this, he breaks the line before bhūmiṁ and notes that sacatuḥ should be read metri causa as saccatuḥ. I'm not very good at āryā types, but in my perception that is a mess; the stanza is a perfect āryā as read by Bhandarkar.

-->

<l n="ab"><lb n="1"/>varṣa-śate guptānāṁ sa-catuḥ-paṁcāśad-uttare bhūmiṁ<!--

Agrawala prints a single daṇḍa at the end of the first half-verse as original, but I see nothing there.

--></l>

<l n="cd">rakṣati kumāragupte māse jyeṣṭhe <unclear>dv</unclear>i<unclear>t</unclear>ī<supplied reason="lost">yā</supplied>yāM||<!--

The punctuation sign is two horizontal strokes, possibly connected around the middle with a vertical bar.

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<l n="a"><lb n="2"/>bhakty-<unclear>ā</unclear>varjjita-manasā yatinā pūjārtham abhayamitreṇa</l>

<l n="b">pratimāpratimasya guṇai<unclear>r a</unclear>pa<unclear>re</unclear>yaṁ <unclear>kā</unclear>ritā śāstuḥ||<!--

This punctuation sign looks just like a blotch, but is probably identical to the first one. Again, no mark in the middle of the verse.

--></l>

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<l n="ab"><lb n="3"/>mātā-pitr̥-guru-pū<unclear>rvvaḥ</unclear> puṇyenānena sa<sic>tv</sic>a-kāyo yaM<!--

Bhandarkar prints "mātā-pitr̥-guru-pūrttiḥ puṇyenānena satvakāyayom" (sic, must be a misprint for kāyo yam) for this line. Instead of pūrttiḥ, Daya Ram Sahni suggested pūrvvaiḥ. This is cited in Hargreaves_1920:124n1 (an editorial note; the editor is Sir John Marshall) and in Bhandarkar_1981:321n1 (again an editorial note, so Chhabra or Gai). (However, the former cites Sahni as suggesting pūrvviḥ, the latter as pūrvvaiḥ.) Both notes say this "is a better reading." Agrawala and Sircar say Sahni said pūrvviḥ, showing pūrvvaiḥ as Sircar's suggestion. In any case, I disagree with all and feel that mātāpitr̥gurupūrvvaḥ (agreeing with kāyo) is clearly the correct reading; what they see as i or ai over the ligature must be just a fault of the stone.

--><!--

The halanta m is a reduced m with a horizontal bar above it.

--></l>

<l n="cd">labhatām abhimatam upaśama-ma<unclear>h</unclear><unclear cert="low">āvaha</unclear> <gap reason="illegible" precision="low" quantity="4" unit="character"/> <unclear>sukhāya</unclear>||<!--

In the unclear final bit, Agrawala (following Sircar) reads upaśama-#i ##### nāM and notes that Gupte had read -yām. Sircar's proposed restoration (also cited by Agrawala) is: upaśamaṁ hitasukhaṁ tadeva bhavatu sattvānām, which seems unmetrical to me unless we assume that anusvāras don't lengthen their vowel, which they do in Sanskrit. And even if they don't, the verse would thereby become a gīti, (which Agrawala and Sircar say it is), but since the first two are āryā (pace Sircar and Agrawala), there's no reason to assume that the third would be in a different metre. In any case, Sircar's suggestion is imo far too long to fit the physical space. Here I largely follow Bhandarkar, whose suggested mah is quite clear after upaśama, and I accept his āvaha for want of anything better. This is followed by 4 or 5 characters. The end, which Bhandarkar reads as prayām (unmetrical), I'm inclined to see as sukhāya, or sukhaM (what others saw as yā or nā is imo khā, with the left hook damaged).

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<p>First reported by Hargreaves (with plate of the image, and transliterated text by Y. R. Gupte) in <bibl><ptr target="bib:Marshall1920_01"/><citedRange>124</citedRange></bibl>.</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">IN00039</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. Sārnāth 199</citedRange></bibl>

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