Hathigumpha inscription

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Hathigumpha inscription

The Hathigumpha inscription is an inscription in Brahmi script . It is located in the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves near Bhubaneswar in eastern India and is believed to have come from Kharavela , a Jain king of the historical Kalinga kingdom . It is said to date from the first or second century BC, perhaps also from the first century after, and reports in seventeen lines of the deeds of Kharavela.

State of preservation

The seventeen-line inscription is in a bad state of preservation, only the first four lines are more or less completely legible. Lines seven to ten are particularly poorly preserved, about half of which are no longer legible. In the remaining lines, individual words or parts of sentences are illegible.

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The inscription mainly reports on the conquests of Kharavela, but there is no historical evidence. He claims to have fought against the kings of the western Deccan , as well as against the rulers of Pandya and the Greeks. He claims to have conquered Magadha . In addition, a statement about religion is recorded in the inscription. Here, too, there is no historical evidence as to whether the claim to respect all non- Brahmanic groups was also lived in his rule, or whether it was just an assertion that served the image as a universal ruler.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya: Some Early Dynasties of South India . Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1974, ISBN 978-81-208-2941-1 , pp. 48–51 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ↑ Jarl Charpentier: The Hāthigumphā-inscription of Khāravela . In: Viennese magazine for the customer of the Orient . tape 29 . Institute for Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna, Vienna 1915, ISBN 978-81-208-2941-1 , p. 209 (English).
  3. ↑ Michael Witzel: The old India . Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-406-48004-1 , p. 102 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ^ Patrick Olivelle: Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE . Oxford University Press , Oxford 2006, ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1 , pp. 392 ( limited preview in Google Book search).