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JOURNAL

of
INDIAN HISTORY
Vol. XLVI1I, Part I April, 1970 Serial No. 142.

CONTENTS
PAGE PAGE

ROMKSH CHUKDER DUTT—by NON- VIOLENT NON-COOPERATION IN WORLD


Dr. R. C. Majamdar 1 HISTORY : A BRIEF SURVEY (UP TO 1900
A. D.) — -by Prof. Himansu Bhusan
THE HISTOBY AND SOCIAL OBGANIZATION Sarkaar ... 63
OF THE GADDA SAKASWATA BRAHMANAS THE SYMBOLISM OTT GAJA LAKSHMI —by
OF THE WEST COAST OF INDIA—by Dr. V. N Hari Rao ... 73
Dr. N. K. Wagle ... 7>
Two INTERESTING SUN IMAGES
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN NACHNA— by Shri M. C Joshi ... 81
INDIA OB THEORETICAL AND METHODO-
LOGICAL APPBOACHES IN ARCHAELOGICAL INDIA'S PROBLEMS IN THE ARTICLES OF
INTERPRETATION IN INDIA—by S. S. SHASHKOV—by
H. D. Sankalia ... 27 N. f.Verma ... 89
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THREE STONE
AORA AND FATEHPUR SIKKI IN THE I6ra LNCBIPTIONS AT THE ASSAM STATE
CENTURY-by Dr. A. L. Srivastava... 48 MUSEUM : GAUHATI — by Dr. P. C.
Choudhury ... 97
THE BRAHMANAS IN EARLY BUDDHIST
LITERAIURE — by Balkrishna Govind (Continued on Cover page 3}
Gokhale 51

Published by
THE UNIVERSITY OF KERALA,
. TR1VANDRUM.
216 JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY

ancestors", "the strength of his position, the extent of his territory


and the large number of his Rajputs who were willing to sacrifice life
for honour"20 Dr. Tripathi and Dr. Raghuvir Sinha have over- Tuk Mas (Central Java) Sanskrit Inscription
looked these facts and arrived at conclusions, not on the basis of (1 Plate)
contemporary evidence, but on wishful thinking. The present writer
yields to none in his admiration for Akbar who occupies without BY
doubt a very high position among the greatest rulers of India in all
\f-
1 '1
her history. But he does not believe that Akbar was infallible. The BAHADUR CHAND CHHABRA, OOTACAMUND
great emperor could have easily waived the condition of personal
homage and service and conquered Pratap by generosity. Akbar's At the foot of the Merbabu volcano in Central Java, on a rock
son Jahangir displayed in his relations with Mewar a greater sense of near the well-known spring of cool water, called Tuk Mas, meaning
realism by exempting Pratap's son Amar Singh from personal attend- 'Golden Spring', is engraved a long line of inscription in early Pallava-
ance and homage, and thus ending a prolonged hostility with that Grantha characters and in the Sanskrit language. It is a verse in the
state. Upajati metre. It reads as follows:

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

rock is filled with as many as sixteen emblemetic figures carved most


probably by the same hand as is responsible for the engraving of the
inscription. They represent a wheel (chakara) with sixteen spokes,
a conchshell (Sankha), a mace (gada), two water-jars (purna-kumbhas)'
a trident (trttula), an axe (paratu), a club, four lotus-rosettes, a
knife, etc. Some of these emblems are evidently connected with
Vishnu and some of others with Siva. Their association with the
inscription leads one to think that the spot with the clear-water
spring near by and the stream flowing along went as a (t\rtha) or a
holy place sacred to the devotees of the Brahmanistic faith. Prof. Dr.
N. J. Krom fancies a hermit who must have stayed and performed
rituals at this holy place.

Before we proceed further, let us have the translation of the


poetic verse, describing the stream at its source.

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,

has been noticed and commented upon by Prof. Dr N. J. Krom in his


Hindoe-Javaansche Qeschiedenis (Hindu-Javanese History), Second, Revised
Edition, The Hague, 1931, pp. 102-03. Kern places the inscription in the fifth
century A D., while according to Krom it may belong to the middle of the
seventh century A. D. The inscription has been re-edited by the present
writer in his Expansion of Indo-Aryan Culture, re-issued, Delhi, 1965, pp
43-44. The information supplied in the sequel of the present article is
pntirly new, it having dawned upon the present writer only subsequently.
2. N. J Krom, op. cit., p. 103.
3. It is more according to the poetic tradition in India (kavi-samaya-khyati) than
the actual existence thereof that rivers and oceans are described as having
lotuses and lilies in them (sarid-udadhi-gatat'n pankaj-endlvar-adi). Cf. The
Kavyattbika, 4th edition, Calcutta, 1919, p. 70, quoting the Sahityadarfiana
of Vis'vanathii,
TUK MAS SANSKRIT INSCRIPTION 219

as we have noticed above. There is something more about the


inscription, which has escaped the notice of the scholars who have
earlier dealt with it in some way or the other. And that is its author
echoing Kalidasa, the greatest poet of India. We do not know who
the author of the Tuk Mas stanza is; but its very wording shows that
he was familiar with Kalidasa's works, especially with his Raghuvamia.
Tn fact, the stanza of the inscription is intimately reminiscent of the
great poet's description of the holy river Gariga at its confluence with
the Yamuna, as found in the RaghuvamSa, Canto XIII, verses 54-57.
It seems that our author modelled his stanza on these verses. In order
to demonstrate the close resemblance we quote below the verses in
question; with their translation.

kvachit prabha-lepibhir= indranMair= mukt&mayi


yaskiir— iv—Snuvidhhii j
anyatra mala siia-pahkajanam—ind}varair—utkhachit-antar=eva //
kvachit khaganarh priya-Manasanam kadamba-samsargavat=\va
panktili /
anyatra kal-aguru-datta-patra bhaktir*~bhuva3=chandana-
kalpit=sva //
kvachit prabha chandramasl tamobhii=chhaya-vH\naih
dabaHkrit^eva /
anyatra tubhra iarad-abhra-lekha randhreshv^iv^alakshya-
nabhah-pradeia //
kvachich=cha krishn-oraga-bhushan=eva bhasm-angaraga
tanur=I^varasya /
pa$y=anavadyafigi vibhati Gariga bhinna-pravaha Yamuna-
tarangaih / /
Translation

"Look, O (my dear) beautiful (STta) ! how majestically is the


Ganges flowing, with its flow broken up (here and there) by the ripples
of the Yamuna; at some places looking like a string of pearls inter-
mixed with lustrous beads of saphire, and at others like a garland
of white lotuses intertwined with blue lilies; at some places looking
like a row of swans fond of the Manasa lake mixed up with black
geese, and at others like a strip of land besmeared with sandal paste
darkened (here and there) by foliage drawn with blackish unguent;
at some places looking like a vast sheet of moon-shine variegated with
patches of darkness hidden under shadows, and at others like a
rolling mass of wintry white clouds with patches of the blue sky
220 JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY

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."

Notes The Travels of Prana Puri


All the four verses make but one long sentences (dar.daka), BY
each hemistich comprising a subordinate clause. The occasion is B. D. MlRCHANDANI
Rama's-return with her spouse, Sita, won back after his victory over
the demon Ravana, from Lanka, in the Pushpaka vimana (aerial It is remarkable how far from India the wanderings of our
chariot), Rama describing the fleeting landscape viewed from up above Sanyasis sometimes took them. In may 1792 Jonathan Duncan,
during the flight approaching Ayodhya. It is again an Indian poetic who afterwards became Governor of Bombay, met a Sanyasi living
tradition that the waters of the river Ganga are fancied as pearl-white at Benares who had been a great traveller: he had travelled not
and those of the river Yamuna as blue-black. With this basic idea, only in India, Nepal, Tibet, Ceylon and Malaya but also in the
the master-mind of Kalidasa weaves a garland of similes (Malopama) countries of Central and Western Asia and gone as far as Moscow.
characteristic of his flight of imagination (Upama Kalidasasya). The To gratify the curiosity of the Englishman, the Sanyasi who was
author of our Tuk Mas stanza was obviously influenced by the above a very intelligent man consented to the story of his travels being
cited description. Apart from the repeated kvachit, his Suchy-ambwuha committed to writing, from his oral delivery in Hindustani, by a
or sus'iichy-amburuha is but a paraphrase of Kalidasa's sita-pankaja in servant of the former; and a few years later, principal extracts
the first of the four verses. from it translated into English were published by Jonathan Duncan,
together with a portrait of the Sanyasi, "in the Asiatic Researches
Incidentally some light is thrown by this on the vexed question (vol. v, 1799, pp.37-48). As to the veracity of the Sanyasi Jonathan
of Kalidasa's time. It is clear that by the time of the Tuk Mas Duncan entertained no doubts whatever. "I have" he remarked,
inscription the fame of that great poet had crossed the Indian ocean. "the utmost reliance, on our traveller's not designing to impose in
any part of his narrative, but allowance must be made for defects
of memory, in a relation extending through so many years, and
comprehending such a number of objects." Also, fortunately for
us, our Sanyasi was not like the average Indian or Tibetan Chersi
pilgrim in respect of xvhom Tucci and Ghersi (Secrets of Tibet, p. 13)
observe: " The motive of this vagabondage is not a desire for new
experience; perhaps many of the places which the pilgrim passes
through he does not note and does not see, so weary is he so hungry,
so absorbed in his prayers. He travels in order to acquire religious
merit,, to visit the holy places of the faith, to draw near the God.
The pilgrimage means really detachment from life.'''

What Jonathan Duncan gives us in the Asiatic Researches is a


bare outline of the Sanyasi's narrative. Yet it makes an enthralling
story. It is astonishing that this man, not from any motive of
worldly gain but impelled by pious zeal and a roving spirit, travelled
to so many parts ot Asia, and to Russia as well, over two hundred
years ago. It was not a tradition in India for our missionaries, or
our pilgrims, who went to foreign lands to leave a record of their

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