1895]. Nagendranatha Vasu — Susunid Bock Inscription. 179 



The spot, where the inscription is situated, is on the north-eastern 

 side of the hill nearly half way to the summit, above a perennial 

 mountain-spring which among the people of the locality goes by the 

 name of Yamadhara or Damdhara, in order to distinguish it from the more 

 important spring Dhara to the south-Avest extremity, which has been 

 already mentioned. The place commands the view of a tract of land 

 towards the north as far as Ranlgaiij, spotted with innumerable villages, 

 ponds, gardens, cornfields, jungles, &c. Tradition runs, that this 

 place was the grotto of Yirupaksa Rsi, who lived there in ancient 

 times. Some also believe that eveu now he lives invisible in the 

 mountain, and others say that some fortunate villager sometimes descries 

 him as an old man with a long white beard and grey hair, roving 

 early in the morning over the hill bright as the sun, singing angelic 

 songs, but vanishing at the approach of man. 



The inscription is on the vertical side of a cliff facing the west. 

 The surface is smooth and there are no fissures visible. The inscrip- 

 tion is written in three lines, with a symbolic ornamented circle at 

 the top. Almost the whole is in an excellent state of preservation. 

 The letters are cut deep and clearly by the hand of a skilful engraver. 

 The average size is nearly 4." The characters belong to the class 

 which Dr. Fleet calls ' the North Indian Alphabet of the 4th century 

 A.D.' All the letters closely resemble those of the ' Meharauli 

 Posthumous Iron Pillar Inscription of Candra,' first brought to notice 

 in our Society's /ozt?'naZ in 1834, and subsequently published in other 

 numbers, and lately by Dr. Fleet in his Corpus Inscriptionum Indica- 

 rum, Vol. Ill, plate XXI A. 



In respect of orthography the only points deserving of notice, are 

 the doubling of k followed by r, as in line I in Cakkra-svaminah, and 

 the doubling of m preceded by r, as in line 2, in pater mmaharaja. 

 The language is Sanskrit and the version prose. 



The circle at the top with its adjuncts represents, I think, the 

 bright discus (cakra) of Visnu, whose name as Gakra-svamin appears 

 at the commencement of the inscription. 



Regarding the posthumous inscription of Candra in the Meharauli 

 pillar, Dr. Fleet says : — 



' My own impression at first on independent grounds, was to allot 

 it to Candra-gupta I., the first Maharajadhiraja of the family, of 

 whose time we have as yet no inscription, and I should not be sur- 

 prised to find any time that it proved to belong to him. The only 

 objection that I can see, is that it contains no reference to the Indo- 

 Scythians, by overthrowing whom the early Guptas must have estab- 

 liahed themselves.' (Fleet's Corp. Ins. lud. III. p. 140 n.). 



