The Gwalior Inscription of Mihirakula is a Sanskrit inscription recording the construction of a Surya temple from stone on the Gopa hill of Gwalior. Though now referred with the name of Mihirakula, the temple and the inscription was commissioned by Matricheta. The original temple is lost, and the inscribed red-sandstone slab was found in 1861 by

Alexander Cunningham Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham (23 January 1814 – 28 November 1893) was a British Army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group who later took an interest in the history and archaeology of India. In 1861, he was appointed to the newly ...

in the porch of another temple, and published in 1861. This inscribed stone from Gwalior was moved shortly after its discovery to the Kolkata museum for preservation. Several translations of it have been published thereafter. It is damaged, its script is the northern class of ancient Gupta script and the entire composition is in poetic verse. It is notable for mentioning a Sun temple in the first part of the sixth century CE, and the rule of the two Hūṇa kings Toramana and Mihirakula.

Location

Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...

is located in northern

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

, India. The shrine probably stood on the edge of the tank known as Surāj Kuṇḍ on Gwalior Fort. The inscription is in the

Indian Museum The Indian Museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India, also referred to as the Imperial Museum at Calcutta in colonial-era texts, is the ninth oldest museum in the world, the oldest and largest museum in India as well as in Asia. It has rare ...

Publication

The inscription was found by Cunningham, who published it in 1861. Rajendralala Mitra published its first interpretation and translation in 1862. At this time, nine lines of text were extant on the broken slab. The inscription was damaged, with first 2-3 characters of every line lost. After its discovery, more lines were lost before the slab was removed and shifted to the Imperial Museum at Calcutta (Indian Museum, Kolkata). Now only seven lines can be studied.

John Faithfull Fleet John Faithfull Fleet C.I.E (1847 – 21 February 1917) was an English civil servant with the Indian Civil Service and became known as a historian, epigraphist and linguist. His research in Indian epigraphy and history, conducted in India over ...

published an interpolated version of this inscription, and a translation of the reconstructed inscription in 1888. It was subsequently noted by Bhandarkar, Garde, Dvivedī and Willis in their respective epigraphic lists.Bhandarkar, ''Epigraphica Indica'' 19-23 (1927-36): appendix, number 1869, 2109; Gwalior State, Archaeological Report for VS 1986/AD 1929-30: number 43; Dvivedī, ''Gvāliyar rājye ke abhilekh'' (VS 2004): number 616;

Michael D. Willis Michael Willis is an Indologist and historian based in London, England. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Willis took his B.A. degree at the University of Victoria where he studied with Siri Gunasinghe and ...

, ''Inscriptions of Gopakṣetra'' (London, 1996). An edition was published by D. C. Sircar in his ''Select Inscriptions''.

Description and contents

The inscription is on red sandstone, written in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and mostly a poetic verse about god

Surya Surya (; sa, सूर्य, ) is the sun as well as the solar deity in Hinduism. He is traditionally one of the major five deities in the Smarta tradition, all of whom are considered as equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja and a m ...

, suggesting it originated in the Saura tradition of Hinduism. The purport is to record that a stone temple was built for the god on the Gopa hill in the month of Kārttika, a hill that is now found in southern part of the

Gwalior Fort The Gwalior Fort commonly known as the ''Gwāliiyar Qila'', is a hill fort near Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India. The fort has existed at least since the 10th century, and the inscriptions and monuments found within what is now the fort campus ind ...

. The stone temple is now missing. It mentions the name of the sponsor to be Matricheta, the son of Matridasa, was the patron. It does not mention the year or era, but mentions the 15th year of Mihirakula, giving this inscription a part of its name and making it a significant historical record.

Inscription

Siddham has published the critically edited version of the inscription as:Gwalior Inscription of Mihirakula
, Siddham, British Library Mihirakula_portrait

Translation

John Fleet in 1888 interpolated and translated the surviving portions of the inscription as follows: {{quote, " �m!May he (the Sun) protect you, who is victorious,-dispelling the darkness of the banks of clouds with the masses of the multitude of his rays that light up the sky; (and) decorating the top of the side of the mountain of dawn with (his) horses, which have the tossing ends of (their) manes deshevelled through the fatigue (induced) by (their) startled gait;-(and) who,-having (his) chariot-wheels (?) swallowed (?)…………. The mountain of dawn; dispelling distress; (being) the light of the house which is the world; (and) effecting the destruction of night,-creates the fresh beauty of the waterlilies by (his) rays which are of the colour of molten gold! Toramana_portrait_from_coin

(Line 2.)-(There was) a ruler of

he earth He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

of great merit, who was renowned by the name of the glorious Tôramâna; by whom, through (his) heroism that was specially characterised by truthfulness, the earth was governed with justice. (L. 3.)-Of him, the fame of whose family has risen high, the son (is) he, of unequalled prowess, the lord of the earth, who is renowned under the name of Mihirakula, (and) who, (himself) unbroken, roke the power of

Pasupati Pashupati (Sanskrit ''Paśupati''; devanagari पशुपति ) is a Hindu deity and an incarnation of the Hindu god Shiva as "lord of the animals". Pashupati is mainly worshipped in Nepal and India. Pashupati is also the national deity of Ne ...

. (L. 4.)-While e the king, the remover of distress, possessed of large and pellucid eyes, is governing the earth; in the augmenting reign, (and) in the fifteenth year, of (him) the best of kings; the month Kârttika, cool and fragrant with the perfume of the red and blue waterlilies that are caused to blossom by the smiles of the rays of the moon, having come; while the spotless moon is shining; and a very auspicious day,-heralded by the chiefs of the classes of the twice-born with the noise of the proclamation of a holy day, (and) possessed of the (proper) tithi and nakshatra and muhûrta,-having arrived;- (L. 5.)-The son’s son of Matritula, and the son of Mâtridâsa, by the name Mâtrichêta, an inhabitant of ………… on the hill, has caused to be made, on the delightful mountain which is speckled with various metals and has the appelation of Gopa, a stone temple, the chief among the best of temples, of the Sun, for the purpose of increasing the religious merit of (his) parents and of himself, and of those who, by the ……… of the king, dwell on this best of mountains. (L. 6.)-Those who cause to be made an excellent house of the Sun, like in lustre to the rays of the moon,-their abode is in heaven, until the destruction of all things! (L. 7.)-(This) very famous proclamation of the true religion has been composed through devotion to the Sun, by him who is renowned by the name of Kesava and by…. ditya. (L. 8.)-As long as the moon shines on the thicket that is the knot of the braided hair of (the god) Sarva; and as long as the mountain Mêru continues to have (its) slopes adorned by the feet of the nymphs of heaven; and as long as (the god)

Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within t ...

bears the radiant (goddess)

Srî Lakshmi (; , sometimes spelled Laxmi, ), also known as Shri (, ), is one of the principal goddesses in Hinduism. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity, and associated with ''Maya'' ("Illusion"). Alo ...

upon (his) breast which is like a dark-blue cloud;-so long (this) chief of tonetemples shall stand upon the delightful summit of the hill!", John F FleetJohn F Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Vol.3 Part 2: Texts & Translations: No. 37, pp. 161-164, {{PD-notice

Notes

External links

British Museum Research Project : ''Politics, Ritual and Religion'' : Epigraphic Findspots
Sanskrit inscriptions in India Gupta and post-Gupta inscriptions