Dated to the 2nd or 1st-century BCE, the Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions ("HGI") are among the oldest known Sanskrit inscriptions in Brahmi script from an early Vaishnavism tradition of ancient India.[1][2][3][4]
The HGI were found as incomplete fragments in three different locations. One fragment was discovered inside an ancient water well in Ghosundi, another at the boundary wall between Ghosundi and Bassi, and the third on a stone slab in the inner wall of Hathibada. They may have been displaced during the Mughal emperor Akbar's siege of Chittorgarh. He camped at Nagari and built some facilities by breaking and reusing old structures, a legacy that gave the location its name "Hathi-bada" or "elephant stable". The fragment discovered in the Hathibada wall has the same style, Brahmi script and partly same text as the Ghosundi fragment, thereby suggesting a link. The three fragments are often studied together.[5][6]
Religious significance
The HGI are significant not only for their antiquity but as a source of information about ancient Indian scripts, society, history and religious beliefs.[5] The inscriptions seem to provide evidence for an early reverence of Vrishni hero-deities Samkarshana and Vāsudeva (later known as Balarama and Krishna), the existence of a stone temple dedicated to them in 1st-century BCE, the puja tradition, and a king who had completed the Vedic Asvamedha sacrifice.[1][7][8] The inscription seems to associate Samkarshana and Vāsudeva with Narayana (Vishnu), possibly a step in their later incorporation as avatars into the Vaishnavite pantheon.[9]
Taken together with evidence such as the Besnagar inscription found on the Heliodorus pillar, the Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions suggest that devotional Bhagavatism was developing in ancient India between the 2nd and 1st century BCE.[7][10] The HGI are not the oldest known inscriptions; others such as the Ayodhya Inscription and Nanaghat Cave Inscription are generally accepted as old or older.[2][11]
Inscriptions
The inscriptions are incomplete, though an attempt at restoration (see below) has been based on Sanskrit prosody rules. The fragments read:[5]
Bhandarkar proposed that the three fragments suggest what the complete reading of fragment A might have been. His proposal was:
<poem> Fragment A (extrapolated)
1. (Karito=yam rajna Bhagava)tena Gajayanena Parasariputrena Sa-
2. (rvatatena Asvamedha-ya)jina bhagava[d*]bhyaih Samkarshana-Vasudevabhyam
3. (anihatabhyarh sarvesvara)bhyam pujasila-prakaro Narayana-vatika.
</poem>
– D. R. Bhandarkar[5]
Translations
Bhandarkar – an archaeologist, translates Fragment A as,
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Harry Falk – an Indologist, states that the king does not mention his father by name, only his mother, and in his dedicatory verse does not call himself raja (king).[13] The king belonged to a Brahmin dynasty of Kanvas, that followed the Sungas dynasty. He translates one of the fragments as:
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Benjamín Preciado-Solís – an Indologist, translates it as:
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↑ 1.01.1Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Oxford University Press(1998). ISBN 978-0-19-509984-3
↑Visnuism and Sivaism: A Comparison{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Bloomsbury Academic(2016). ISBN 978-1-4742-8082-2
↑Religion, Narrative and Public Imagination in South Asia: Past and Place in the Sanskrit Mahabharata{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Routledge(2013). ISBN 978-1-136-64589-1
↑A History of Indian Archaeology from the Beginning to 1947{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Munshiram Manoharlal(1988). ISBN 978-81-215-0079-1
↑ 7.07.1The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. John Wiley & Sons(2008). ISBN 978-0-470-99868-7
↑Studies in the Puranic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Motilal Banarsidass(1987). ISBN 978-81-208-0422-7
↑Early Vaiṣṇava Imagery: Caturvyūha and Variant Forms. Archives of Asian Art({Template:Date).
↑Krishna in History, Thought, and Culture{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. ABC-CLIO(2016). ISBN 978-1-61069-211-3
↑Buddhist Landscapes in Central India: Sanchi Hill and Archaeologies of Religious and Social Change, C. Third Century BC to Fifth Century AD{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Routledge(2013). ISBN 978-1-61132-344-3
↑Terracotta Art of Rajasthan: From Pre-Harappan and Harappan Times to the Gupta Period{{#if:Sant|, Sant}. Aryan Books International(1997). ISBN 978-81-7305-115-9
↑Krishna in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Hindu Lord of Many Names: An Encyclopedia of the Hindu Lord of Many Names{{#if:Ph.D|, Ph.D}. ABC-CLIO(2016-06-13). ISBN 978-1-61069-211-3
↑Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE{{#if:Olivelle|, Olivelle}. Oxford University Press(2006-07-13). ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1
↑Protected Monuments of Rajasthan{{#if:Singh|, Singh}. Jawahar Kala Kendra(2002). ISBN 978-81-86782-60-6
