Sudarshana Lake: Difference between revisions

The inscription has twenty lines, of different lengths spread over about 5.5 feet high and 11 feet wide. The first sixteen lines are extensively damaged in parts and are incomplete, with evidence suggesting willful damage as well as natural rock peeling. The lost text constitutes about 15 percent of the total text. The last four are complete and in a good state of preservation.<ref name=kielhorn36>F. Kielhorn, ''Junagadh Rock Inscription of Rudradaman'', Epigraphia Indica, Volume VIII, No. 6, pages 36-49</ref> According to Kielhorn, the alphabet is an earlier form of the "decidedly southern alphabet" of those found later in [[Gupta Empire]] and inscriptions of Skandagupta. The inscribed characters are about 7/8 inches in height.<ref name=salomon1998p89>{{cite book|last=Salomon|first=Richard|title=Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYrG07qQDxkC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-535666-3|pages=89–90}}</ref><ref name="SI">{{cite book |last1=Ichimura |first1=Shōhei |title=Buddhist Critical Spirituality: Prajñā and Śūnyatā |date=2001 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publisher |isbn=9788120817982 |page=45 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xTW6XNxOxbkC&pg=PA45 |language=en}}</ref> The Western Satraps successors of Rudradaman, however, were not influenced by this inscription's literary style, but preferred a less formal hybrid Sanskrit language.<ref name=salomon1998p89/> The first eight lines offer a historical record of water management and irrigation conduits at the Sudarshana Lake from the era of [[Chandragupta Maurya]] (321-297 BCE) to the time when the inscription was written around 150 CE. The last twelve lines praise king Rudradaman I (literally, "garland of [[Rudra]]").<ref name=kielhorn36/><ref name=salomon1998p89/><ref name="Chakrabarti1999p294">{{cite book|author=Dilip K. Chakrabarti|title=India, an Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YiNuAAAAMAAJ|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-564573-6|pages=294–295}}</ref>