Professional Documents
Culture Documents
of
INDIAN HISTORY
Vol. XLVI1I, Part I April, 1970 Serial No. 142.
CONTENTS
PAGE PAGE
Published by
THE UNIVERSITY OF KERALA,
. TR1VANDRUM.
216 JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY
The scholars referred to above aver that the cessation of the [k vach i/=su]3u[chyam Jburuh-anuja ta
conflict by Pratap would have saved considerable human life and k vach ich=chh ila-valuka-nirgo t—eyam
property which would have benefited the State. This is no doubt kvachit=prak\rrnia bubha-£\ta-toya
true. But Mewar would not have secured a preferential treaty at the samprasruta m[edhya-]kar = \va Ganga
hands of the Mughal emperor, if Pratap and his son Amar Singh had
not waged a prolonged war and not made the sacrifices that they did. The letters within the square brackets in the above transcript are
lost or are indistinct in the original inscription. These have been
It may be said in conclusion that in waging a life-long war neither supplied conjecturally. Besides, at the beginning there must have
Akbar nor Pratap was actuated by communal or religious considera- been engraved an auspicious symbol, as usual, standing for the sacred
tions. Akbar's religious universalism and his secularism as an syllable om or the word siddh.am, which is now lost.
instrument of state policy are well known. Pratap too was not a
narrow-minded religious zealot. He had Muslim allies who, like The verse gives a poetic description of the'stream gushing out
Hakim Sur, shed their blood in his wars against the Mughals. His of the said Golden Spring, Tuk Mas. It affords no information of
conflict with Akbar was a political conflict, that is, one between the historical interest at all. We do not know who its author is, when
claims of a small and ancient ihdependent State and those of the rising it was engraved and under what circumstances. There are, however,
Indian imperialism that tried to unite the whole country under one certain subsidiaries that invest the inscription with considerable
sceptre. The Rana carieed the general mass of the people of Mewar— cultural interest as well as with great importance, specially in the
Rajputs, Brahmans, Vaish, Kayasths (Pancholis) and others, including context of the spread of Indo-Aryan civilisation in Indonesia and the
the primitive Bhils— with him, and these gave him their steadfast neighbouring regions during the early centuries of the Christian era.
support. Akbar too had the support of all classes of people includ- First of all is the type of script used: Pallava-Grantha characters, as
ing the Rana's kith and kin in Rajasthan. None of these two already mentioned. Their palaeography points to a period between 500
supermen fought for nis own hand. A. D. and 700 A. D.i Besides, the space above the inscription on the
). The inscription has been published, in Dutch, by Prof. Dr. Henry Kern in
the Bijdragen tot deTaal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Vol. LXV, 1911,pp 334-36,
with three plates; reproduced in Kern's collected works under the title
20. Akharnarna, op. cit, Vol. Ill, 173. Verspreide Qeschrijfen, Vol. VII, pp. 199-204, with a facsimile. The same
218 JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY
Translation
"Gushing forth is this (stream), purifying as the Ganges, at
some places bedecked with bright lilies and lotus flowers.a at some
places bubbling out from pebbles and sand, (and) at some places
spreading out its pure and cool water."
The mention here of the holy river Ganga, the Ganges, of India
is very significant indeed. According to mythical tradition, Ganga
issued from Vishnu's feet and dropped into Siva's locks. This
explains the existence of the mixed emblems of Vishnu and Siva:
iankha, chakra, triiula, paratu, etc., engraved above the inscription,
peeping out of the intervening gaps; and again at some places looking
like the body of £>iva, powdered with white ashes and bedecked with
black serpents."