Sanskrit Inscriptions of Delhi Sultanate 1191-1526 (An Old and Rare Book)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Inscriptions have served as a major source of political history of ancient India, and they remain valuable for the social and cultural history of medieval India, where political history is covered in detail by chronicles. Pushpa Prasad's collection of inscriptions in Sanskrit and related languages dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century is an important addition to the source material on the Delhi Sultanate.

This collection is a comprehensive one for Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (excluding the Himalayan districts). It follows the most rigorous standards set for the publication of epigraphic documents, giving the decipherment, an annotated translation, and complete information about the locales of the inscriptions and the historical significance of the texts. The Introduction sums up the information given by these documents and relates them to what is known about relevant matters from other sources. Curiosities have not been ignored, as it is often from what are curiosities today that inferences may be derived tomorrow.

The volume contains eighteen illustrations, reproducing the original text of the most important inscriptions, and a full descriptive index.

The author, a Reader at the Aligarh Muslim University, has been working on epigraphic sources and medieval texts like the Lekhapaddhiti for some years and has published a number of papers in different journals.

This book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor K.A. Nizami, to whom I am greatly in debt. I was also priviledged to receive encouragement from Professor S. Nurul Hasan, who first suggested that I should work on Sanskrit inscriptions. My special thanks go to Professor Irfan Habib from whose advice I have benefited considerably in dealing with Persian material and in preparing the book for the press.

Professor R.S. Sharma scrutinized the text of the book and made important suggestions which I incorporated as carefully as I could. It was at his desire that I identified metres while editing the texts of all the versified inscriptions. Dr S.R. Sarma, Reader, Sanskrit Department, Aligarh Muslim University, and Dr Raghubir Shastri, former Head, Department of Sanskrit, Shri Varshney Degree College. Aligarh, gave me unstinted assistance in deciphering difficult inscriptions and interpreting them. My colleague, Dr S.P. Verma, helped me in taking impressions and photographs of the inscriptions and obliged me by reading all the page-proofs.

I have also been fortunate to have benefited from the personal interest and advice of some of the most renowned scholars, namely, Mr G.S. Ghai, Dr K.G. Krishnan, Dr Z.A. Desai, Dr J.P. Joshi, Professor B.B. Lal, Dr K.V. Ramesh and Dr M.C. Joshi, who helped me in every possible manner, including supplying photo- graphs of inscriptions.

My grateful thanks are due to the authorities of the Bharat Kala Bhavan, Varanasi, the State Museum, Allahabad, the State Muse- um, Lucknow, the State Museum, Mathura, the Red Fort Museum, Delhi, the Archaeological Survey of India Library, New Delhi, the Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University, and the Re- search Library of our Department for their co-operation and help, including permission to publish material from their collections.

I cannot pass without acknowledging the encouragement and help received from Professor Shireen Moosvi, Dr Iqbal Husain, Mr Iftikhar Ahmad Khan and Dr M. Afzal Khan.

Writing in 1944, Dr Bendrey remarked that inscriptions lose their special significance when written chronicles begin with the advent of Muslim rule in India. This is, of course, broadly true, but in spite of the loss in relative significance, their number increases enormously after the establishment of the Sultanate. For some regions and dynasties they even continue to retain their importance as primary sources. In general, inscriptions give us some valuable information on non-political history, on which the chronicles have little to offer.

In view of their large number, the study of inscriptions has to be kept within a particular time span. The present work is therefore confined to the Sanskrit and Nagari inscriptions of the Sultanate period (1191-1526) found in the present State of Uttar Pradesh (excluding the Himalayan districts) and the Union Territory of Delhi. We follow the known boundaries of modern times, for the borders of the dynastic states of the period studied constantly changed. Further, numerous inscriptions do not refer to any ruling power, let alone give a reference by which their dynastic affiliation can be identified.

1. Texts of the Inscriptions
One hundred and twenty inscriptions are covered in our study. All the texts incised and engraved on stone or on copper-plates have been included and arranged in a chronological order; these are, however, arranged in two separate groups, group I for those found in Delhi, and II for U.P. The separate grouping of the Delhi inscriptions has no particular reason to support it, except the convenience of having all the Sanskrit and Nagari inscriptions of this metropolis in one sequence.

Many of the inscriptions in the present collection have been published and translated by scholars, including James Prinsep, A. Cunningham, F. Kielhorn, R.L. Mitra, D.R. Bhandarkar, and H.L. Sastri. But many texts have been printed without stampages or photo-reproductions, and in several cases where I was able to check with the originals, inaccuracies in decipherment were noticed. Moreover, a number of inscriptions have not been published so far, and their texts (as well as translations) appear here for the first time. There must be many inscriptions which exist but remain hidden from us, still covered by earth, or lying-in private collections or in private buildings.

As far as possible, every inscription (published or unpublished) has been deciphered here afresh from the originals or from stamp- ages. The latter have been seen at the Chief Epigraphist's Office in Mysore, the Lucknow Provincial Museum, the Mathura Museum, the Bharat Kala Bhavan at Varanasi, the Allahabad Museum, and the Delhi Fort Museum. I obtained direct impressions of some inscriptions upon personal inspection. Unfortunately, stampages of some inscriptions could not be obtained even after personal visits to the sites due to the mutilated condition of the stone or because the inscriptions had been removed from their original find-spots. In some cases (always noted), I have had to rest content with previous decipherments.