1862.] Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior. 391 



Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior. — By Babtt Rajendealala 



MlTEA. 



Ordinarily, monumental history rectifies or completes written his- 

 tory. But in India, where oblivion has gloriously triumphed over all 

 ancient records, making puzzles of Cyclopean erections, and turning 

 old glories into dreams ; where most of her sovereigns and great men 

 live not in the pages of a Xenophon or a Thucydides, but in a few 

 fanciful fables, rude coins, smouldering ruins, and blotted inscrip- 

 tions ; it has to establish a history and not to rectify it. Hence it 

 is, that in India it has a value which is utterly unknown in other 

 parts of the civilized world. It has already thrown valuable light 

 upon the annals of many a prosperous reign ; and much is yet 

 expected of it. Our As'okas and Guptas live but in their inscrip- 

 tions and coins, and our Scythians and Indo-Bactrians and Shah 

 Kings have left to us their only vestiges in their mint-marks. In- 

 dividual inscriptions and coins may not often yield matter of en- 

 grossing importance, but as most inscriptions of by-gone times, 

 when only kings and princes and such like men could afford the 

 luxury of recording inscriptions, contain something which in con- 

 nexion with others may be of interest in elucidating the annals of the 

 country, I trust, the following analyses and translations of some 

 from the celebrated fortress of Gwalior, affording as they do the 

 traces of a number of sovereigns, mostly unknown to Oriental 

 scholars, will not be altogether unacceptable to the readers of the 

 Journal. For fac-similies of these inscriptions, I am indebted to the 

 Government Archaeological Enquirer, Colonel Alexander Cunningham, 

 who has been kind enough to place at my disposal, for publication, 

 reduced copies of several of them in anticipation of a paper by him 

 on the antiquities and history of Gwalior. 



Pere Tieffenthaler in his description of Agra has given a long list* 



* The list runs as follows : — tier d'apres un Hermite norame 



Suite des Rajahs gentils de Gualipa, qui le guerit de la lepre 



Gualier, de la race de Catschua. avec l'eau tiree d'une fontaine (ou 



1. Le premier a ete Souradj source) et qui l'anima et l'aida a 



sere, qui changea son nom en celui construire cette forteresse. Sou- 



de Souradjpdl, et batit la fameuse radjpdl la gouverna, ainsi que 



forteresse de Gualier, Fan 332 de son district pendant, ... Ans. 36 



l'Ere Indienne appelee l'Ere de 2. Son fils Rescpal lui succeda, 



Bikarmatschet. II la noimna Gua~ mais ne gouverna qu'un, ,., i 



3 F 



