DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2371#0088
66
CHAPTER III.
HATHI GUMPHA.
All who have written on the subject are agreed that the Hathi
Gumpha or Elephant Cave, is the oldest that exists in these hills.
It is, however, only a natural cavern of considerable extent, which
may have been slightly enlarged by art, though there is no distinct
evidence that this was so. At all events there is certainly no archi-
tectural moulding or form, to show that it was ever occupied by
man and not by wild animals only, except a long inscription in
17 lines engraved on the smoothed brow of the rock above it. It is
consequently of no value whatever in an architectural object, and
from an archaeological point of view its whole interest resides in the
inscription, which, so far as is at present known, is the earliest that
has yet been found in India.
A very imperfect attempt to copy this inscription accompanies
Mr. Stirling's paper on Cuttack in the 15th volume of the Asiatic
Researches, but so badly done as to be quite illegible. The first
real copy was made by Lieutenant Kittoe in 1837, and though only
an eye sketch was done with such marvellous exactness, that
Mr. Prinsep was enabled to make a very correct translation of the
whole, which he published in the sixth volume of the Bengal Asiatic
Journal (pp. 1080 et seq.). From the more matured and priestly
style of composition with which it commences, he was inclined to
consider it more modern than the edicts of Asoka, and assumed the
date to be about 200 B.C., a date which I, and every one else, was at
the time, led to adopt in deference to the opinion of so distinguished
a scholar. It has since, however, been more carefully re-examined
by Babu Rajendralala Mitra, by personal inspection on the spot,
and with the aid of photographs. For reasons which seem to me
sufficient to establish his conclusion, he places it about a century
earlier, b.c. 300 or 325. One of the more important data for the
earlier date is the occurrence in the 12th line of the name of ISTanda,
king of Magadha, of which Mr. Prinsep does not seem to have been
aware; and as it is used apparently in the past tense, it looks as if
the king Aira who caused this inscription to be written, came after
CHAPTER III.
HATHI GUMPHA.
All who have written on the subject are agreed that the Hathi
Gumpha or Elephant Cave, is the oldest that exists in these hills.
It is, however, only a natural cavern of considerable extent, which
may have been slightly enlarged by art, though there is no distinct
evidence that this was so. At all events there is certainly no archi-
tectural moulding or form, to show that it was ever occupied by
man and not by wild animals only, except a long inscription in
17 lines engraved on the smoothed brow of the rock above it. It is
consequently of no value whatever in an architectural object, and
from an archaeological point of view its whole interest resides in the
inscription, which, so far as is at present known, is the earliest that
has yet been found in India.
A very imperfect attempt to copy this inscription accompanies
Mr. Stirling's paper on Cuttack in the 15th volume of the Asiatic
Researches, but so badly done as to be quite illegible. The first
real copy was made by Lieutenant Kittoe in 1837, and though only
an eye sketch was done with such marvellous exactness, that
Mr. Prinsep was enabled to make a very correct translation of the
whole, which he published in the sixth volume of the Bengal Asiatic
Journal (pp. 1080 et seq.). From the more matured and priestly
style of composition with which it commences, he was inclined to
consider it more modern than the edicts of Asoka, and assumed the
date to be about 200 B.C., a date which I, and every one else, was at
the time, led to adopt in deference to the opinion of so distinguished
a scholar. It has since, however, been more carefully re-examined
by Babu Rajendralala Mitra, by personal inspection on the spot,
and with the aid of photographs. For reasons which seem to me
sufficient to establish his conclusion, he places it about a century
earlier, b.c. 300 or 325. One of the more important data for the
earlier date is the occurrence in the 12th line of the name of ISTanda,
king of Magadha, of which Mr. Prinsep does not seem to have been
aware; and as it is used apparently in the past tense, it looks as if
the king Aira who caused this inscription to be written, came after