DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0252
Chap. Ill
GUBNAB.
229
how not so fashionable in modern times as that at Pah tana. It wants,
consequently, that bewildering magnificence arising from the number
and variety of buildings of all ages that crowd that temple city.
Besides this, the temples themselves at Girnar lose orach of their
apparent size from being perched on the side of a hill rising 3500 ft.
above the level of the sea, composed of granite rocks strewn about in
most picturesque confusion.
Although we have no Girnar Mahatniya to retail fables and
falsify dates, as is done at Sutrunjya, we have at Girnar inscriptions
which prove that in ancient times it must have been a place of great
importance. On a rock outside the town at its foot, called par
excellence Junaghar—the Old Fort—Asoka, b.c. 250, carved a copy of
his celebrated edicts.1 On the same rock, in a.d. 151, Rudra Damn,
the Sab king of Saurastra, carved an inscription, in which he boasted
of his victories over the Sat Kami, king of the Dekhan, and recorded
his having repaired the bridge built by the Maurya Asoka.- The
embankment of the Sudarsana lake again burst and earned away this
bridge, but was again repaired by Skanda, the last of the great Guptas,
in the year a.d. 457,3 and another inscription on the same rock records
this event.
A place where three such kings thought it worth while to record
their deeds or proclaim their laws must, one would think, have been an
important city or place at that time ; but what is so characteristic of
India occurs here as elsewhere. No material remains are found to
testify to the fact.4 There are no remains of an ancient city, no
temples or ruins that can approach the age of the inscriptions, and
but for their existence we should not be aware that the place was
known before the 10th century. There are, it is true, some caves in
the Uparkot which may be old; but they have not yet been examined
by any one capable of discriminating between ancient and modern
things, and till so visited their evidence is not available.5 My
1 No really satisfactory translation of
these Asoka edicts lias yet Won pub-
lished. The Wst is that of Professor
Wilson, in vol. xii. 'Journal of Royal
Asiatic Society.' Mr. Burgess has, how-
ever, recently re-copied that at (iirnar,
and General Cunningham those in the
north of India. When these are pub-
lished it may be possible to make a
better translation than lias yet appeared.
- ' Journal Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. viii. p. 120.
:' Ibid., vol. vii. p. 124.
4 Lieut. Postans' ' Journey to Girnar,'
1 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Ben-
gal,' vol. vii. p. 865, ct seqq. This, with
most of the facts here recorded, is
taken either from Mr. Burgess's descrip-
tions of the photographs in his ' Visit
to Soninath, Girnar, and other places in
Kathiawar,'or Lieut. Postans' 'Journey,'
just referred to. Col. Tod's facts are too
much mixed up with poetry to admit of
their Wing quoted.
' Mr. Burgess visited this place during
the spring of the present year, and has
brought away plans and sections, from
which it appeal's these caves are old, but
till his materials are published it is inii
jiossible to state exactly how old they
may be. I am afraid this work will be-
published long before his Repot t.
GUBNAB.
229
how not so fashionable in modern times as that at Pah tana. It wants,
consequently, that bewildering magnificence arising from the number
and variety of buildings of all ages that crowd that temple city.
Besides this, the temples themselves at Girnar lose orach of their
apparent size from being perched on the side of a hill rising 3500 ft.
above the level of the sea, composed of granite rocks strewn about in
most picturesque confusion.
Although we have no Girnar Mahatniya to retail fables and
falsify dates, as is done at Sutrunjya, we have at Girnar inscriptions
which prove that in ancient times it must have been a place of great
importance. On a rock outside the town at its foot, called par
excellence Junaghar—the Old Fort—Asoka, b.c. 250, carved a copy of
his celebrated edicts.1 On the same rock, in a.d. 151, Rudra Damn,
the Sab king of Saurastra, carved an inscription, in which he boasted
of his victories over the Sat Kami, king of the Dekhan, and recorded
his having repaired the bridge built by the Maurya Asoka.- The
embankment of the Sudarsana lake again burst and earned away this
bridge, but was again repaired by Skanda, the last of the great Guptas,
in the year a.d. 457,3 and another inscription on the same rock records
this event.
A place where three such kings thought it worth while to record
their deeds or proclaim their laws must, one would think, have been an
important city or place at that time ; but what is so characteristic of
India occurs here as elsewhere. No material remains are found to
testify to the fact.4 There are no remains of an ancient city, no
temples or ruins that can approach the age of the inscriptions, and
but for their existence we should not be aware that the place was
known before the 10th century. There are, it is true, some caves in
the Uparkot which may be old; but they have not yet been examined
by any one capable of discriminating between ancient and modern
things, and till so visited their evidence is not available.5 My
1 No really satisfactory translation of
these Asoka edicts lias yet Won pub-
lished. The Wst is that of Professor
Wilson, in vol. xii. 'Journal of Royal
Asiatic Society.' Mr. Burgess has, how-
ever, recently re-copied that at (iirnar,
and General Cunningham those in the
north of India. When these are pub-
lished it may be possible to make a
better translation than lias yet appeared.
- ' Journal Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. viii. p. 120.
:' Ibid., vol. vii. p. 124.
4 Lieut. Postans' ' Journey to Girnar,'
1 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Ben-
gal,' vol. vii. p. 865, ct seqq. This, with
most of the facts here recorded, is
taken either from Mr. Burgess's descrip-
tions of the photographs in his ' Visit
to Soninath, Girnar, and other places in
Kathiawar,'or Lieut. Postans' 'Journey,'
just referred to. Col. Tod's facts are too
much mixed up with poetry to admit of
their Wing quoted.
' Mr. Burgess visited this place during
the spring of the present year, and has
brought away plans and sections, from
which it appeal's these caves are old, but
till his materials are published it is inii
jiossible to state exactly how old they
may be. I am afraid this work will be-
published long before his Repot t.