1st-century BCE Sanskrit inscriptions
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The Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions, sometimes referred simply as the Ghosundi Inscription or the Hathibada Inscription, are the oldest Sanskrit inscriptions in the Brahmi script, and dated to the 2nd-1st century BCE. The Hathibada inscription were found near Nagari village, about 8 miles (13km) north of Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, India, while the Ghosundi inscription was found in the village of Ghosundi, about 3 miles (4.8km) southwest of Chittorgarh.
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 – an archaeologist, translates Fragment A as,
(This) enclosing wall round the stone (object) of worship, called Narayana-vatika (Compound) for the divinities Samkarshana-Vāsudeva who are unconquered and are lords of all (has been caused to be made) by (the king) Sarvatata, a Gajayana and son of (a lady) of the Parasaragotra, who is a devotee of Bhagavat (Vishnu or Samkarshana/Vāsudeva) and has performed an Asvamedha sacrifice.
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:
adherent of the Lord (bhagavat), belonging to the gotra of the Gajayanas, son of a mother from the Parasara gotra, performer of an Asvamedha.[13]
Benjamín Preciado-Solís – an Indologist, translates it as:
[This] stone enclosure, called the Narayana Vatika, for the worship of Bhagavan Samkarsana and Bhagavan Vāsudeva, the invincible lords of all, [was erected] by [the Bhaga]vata king of the line of Gaja, Sarvatata, the victorious, who has performed an asvamedha, son of a Parasari.[14]
Within the inscriptions, a local king of Madhyamika (modern day Nagari, Rajasthan) named Sarvatata is mentioned.[15][16][17][18] According to inscriptions, he performed the Ashvamedhayajna and also constructed a Narayana-vatika (vatika may mean "garden") compound dedicated to Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva.[19] The inscription also names Gajayana as Sarvatata's gotra or dynasty name, though this also is unclear. The same inscription names his mother's gotra as Parasari or Parāśara.[20][21]
Theo Damsteegt (1978). Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit. Brill Academic. pp.209–211. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2017. p.205: "Three more Hinduist inscriptions in Sanskrit, with identical text, have been found at Ghosundf and Hathibada in Rajasthan, thus, outside the Aryavarta." p.210: "The three Sanskrit inscriptions from Ghosundf (Hathibada) refer to the erection of a stone wall in connection with puja (pujasilaprakara-) by a king; the gods Samkarsana and Vasudeva are mentioned."
Harry Falk (2006). Patrick Olivelle (ed.). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE. Oxford University Press. pp.149–150. ISBN978-0-19-977507-1. Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2017. The dynasty after the Śuṅgas is believed to be the Kaṇvas, to which the first inscription in real Sanskrit is attributed. It was found in Ghosūṇdī, Rajasthan, and near to it in three exemplars on a stone wall. The king calls himself: bhāgavatena gājāyanena pārāśarīputreṇa sarvatātena aśvamedhayājinā, adherent of the Lord (bhagavat), belonging to the gotra of the Gājāyanas, son of a mother from the Pārāśara gotra, performer of an Aśvamedha. He does not mention his father by name; his mother occurs with reference to her brahmanical (Vasiṣṭha) gotra; even as a performer of the most-praised royal ritual he does not use the title rājā.
