1SG2.] 
Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior . 
391 
Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior .— By Babu Pajendralala 
Mitra. 
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 :— 
Suite des Rajahs gentils de 
Gualier , de la race de Catschua. 
1. Le premier a ete Souradj. 
sen, qui cliangea son noin en celui 
de Souradjpal, et batit la fameuse 
forteresse de Gualier , fan 332 de 
l’Rre Indienne appelee l’Ere de 
HiJcarmatschet. II la noiuma Gua¬ 
lier d’apres un Hermite nomme 
Gualipa, qui le guerit de la lepre 
avec l’eau tiree d’une fontaine (ou 
source) et qui l’anirna et l’aida a 
construire cette forteresse. Sou- 
radjpal la gouverna, ainsi que 
son district pendant, ... Ans. 36 
2. Son fils Rescpal lui succeda, 
uiais ne gouverna qu’un, 
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