Tuk Mas (Central Java) Sanskrit Inscription Java

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JOURNAL

o fINDIAN HISTORY

Vol. XLVI1I,Part I April, 1970

CONTENTS

P A G E

Serial No. 142.

R O M K S HC H U K D E RD U T T b yD r. R. C. Majamdar 1

T H E HISTOBYA N D S O C I A LO B G A N I Z A T I O NO F T H E G A D D AS A K A S W A T AB R A H M A N A SO FT H EWESTC O A S TOF I N D I A b yD r. N. K. Wagle ... 7 >

T H E P H I L O S O P H YO F A R C H A E O L O G YI NI N D I A O B T H E O R E T I C A L A N D M E T H O D O -L O G I C A LA P P B O A C H E SI N A R C H A E L O G I C A LI N T E R P R E T A T I O NIN I N D I A b yH. D. Sankalia ... 27

A O R AAND FATEHPUR SIKK I INT H E I6raCENTURY-byD r. A. L. Srivastava... 48

T H E B R A H M A N A SIN E A R L Y BUDDHISTL I T E R A I U R E b y B alkr i shna GovindGokhale 51

PAGE

N O N -V I O L E N T N O N - C O O P E R A T I O NI N WORLDHISTORY: A BRIEFS U R V E Y(UP TO1900A. D.) -by Prof. Himansu Bhusan

Sarkaar ... 63TH E S Y M B O L I S MO T TGAJA LAKSHMI by

Dr. V. N H a r i Rao ... 73

T w o I N T E R E S T I N GSU N I M A G E SN A C H N Ab y Shr i M. C Joshi ... 81

INDIA'S P R O B L E M SIN THE ARTICLES OFS. S. S H A S H K O V b yN. f.Verma ... 89

S I G N I F I C A N C E O FT H E T H R E E S T O N EL N C B I P T I O N S ATTH E A S S A M S T A T EM U S E U M: G A U H A T I b y D r. P. C .Choudhury ... 97

(Continued on Cover page3}

.

Published b yTHE UNIVERSITYOF K E R A L A ,

T R 1 VA N D R U M .



21 6 JOURNAL OF INDIAN HISTORY

\f -1 '1

ancestors", "the strength of his position, the extent of his territoryand the large number of his Rajputs who were w illingto sacrifice lifefor honour" 20 Dr. Tripathi and Dr. Raghuvir Sinha have over-looked these facts an d arrived at conclusions, not on the basisofcontemporary evidence,but on wishful th inking. T he present writeryields to none in his admiration for Akbar who occupies withoutdoubt a very high position amo ng the greatest rulers of India in allher history. But he does not believe that A k b a r was infallible. Thegreat emperor could haveeasily waived the condition of personalhomage andservice and conquered Pratap by generosi ty. Akb ar 'sson Jahangirdisplayed in his relations with Mewar a greater sense ofrealism b y exempting Pratap'sson A mar Singh from personal a ttend-ance and homage, and thus ending a prolonged hostility with thatstate.

T he scholars referred to above aver that the cessation of theconflict by Pratap would have savedconsiderable hum an life andproper ty which wou ld have benefited th e State. This is no d o u b ttrue. B ut Mewar w ou ldno t have secured a preferential treatyat thehands of the Mu ghal emperor, if Pratap andhis son Amar Singh hadno t waged a prolonged war and no t m a d ethe sacrifices that they did.

It m ay be said in conclusion thatin waging a l ife-long w ar neitherA k b a r nor Pratapwas actuated b y c o m m u n alor religious considera-tions. Akbar's religious universalism and hi s secularism as aninstrument of state policy are well known. Pratap too was not anarrow-mindedreligious zealot. He had Musl im allies who, l ikeHakim Sur, shed their blood in his wars against the Mughals. Hisconflict w ith Akb ar w as a political conflict, that is, onebetween theclaims of a small and ancient ihdependent State and those of the risingIndian imperialism that tried to unite th e w hole country underonesceptre. T he Rana carieed the general massof the people of M ewarRajputs , Brahmans,Vaish, Kayas th s(Pancholis) an d others, includingthe pr imit ive Bhils wi th him, an d these gave him their s teadfastsupport . Akbartoo had the support of all classes of people includ-ing the Rana's kith and kin inRajasthan. None of these tw osupermen fought for nis own hand.

20. Akharnarna, op. cit, Vol. Ill, 173.

T uk M as (Central Java) Sanskri t Inscription(1 Plate)

B Y

B A H A D U R C H A N D C H H A B R A , O O T A C A M U N D

At the foot of the Merbabu volcanoin Central Java,on a rocknear the well-known spr ingof cool w ater, calledT uk Mas, meaning'Golden Spring', is engraved a long line of inscription in e arly Pallava-Grantha characters and in the Sanskrit language. It is a verse in theUpajati metre. It reads as follows:

[k vachi/ =su ]3u[chyamJburuh-anujatak vachic h=ch hila-valuka-nirgot eyam

kvachit=prak\rrniabubha-£\ ta- toyasamprasrutam[edhya-]kar= \va Ganga

T he letters w ithin the square bracke ts in the above trans cript arelost or are indistinct in the original inscription. These have beensupplied conjectura lly. B esides, at the be ginning there mu st havebeen engraved an auspicious sym bo l, as usual, stand ing for the sacredsyllable om or the wo rdsiddh.am, w hich is now lost .

The verse gives a poetic description of the 'st re am gushing outof the said Golden Spring, T uk Mas. It affords no information ofhistorical interestat all. W e do not know w ho i ts author is , whenit was engraved and under w hat circumstances. There are, however,certain subsidiaries tha t invest the inscr ipt ion with considerablecultural interest as w ell as w ith great importance, specially in the

context of the spread of I ndo- Ary an civilisation in Indonesia and theneighbouring regions du ring the early centuries of the Christian era.First of all is the type of scrip t used:Pal lava-Grantha characters, asalready mentioned. Their palaeography pointsto a period between50 0A. D. and 700 A.D.i Besides,th e space abovethe inscription on the

) . The inscript ion has been published, inDutch, by P ro f . D r. H enry Kern inthe Bijdragen to t deTaal-, Land- enVolkenkunde,Vol. L X V, 1 9 1 1 , p p 334-36,wi th three plates; reprod uced in Kern 's col lected work s und er thetitleVerspreide Qeschr i j fen , Vol. V I I , pp . 199-204, with a facsimile . T he same




rock is filled wi th as m a n y as sixteen emblemet icfigures carved mostprobably by the same hand as is responsible for the engraving of theinscription. They representa wheel (chakara) w ith sixteen spokes,a conchshell (Sankha), a mace (gada), tw o w ater- jars (purna-kumbhas) 'a trident (trttula), an ax e (paratu), a club, four lotus-rosettes,aknife, etc. Some of these emb l ems ar e evident ly connected w i thVishnu and some of others with Siva. Their association with theinscription leads one to th ink that the spot wi th the clear-waterspring nearb y and the s t ream flowing along wentas a (t\rtha) or aholy place sacred to the devotees of the B rahmanis t ic fai th . Prof .Dr.N. J . Krom fanciesa hermit w ho must have s tayed an d performedrituals at this holy place.

Before w e proceed fur ther, let us have the t rans la t ion of thepoetic verse, descr ib ingthe stream at its source.

Translation

"Gushing for th is this (stream), p u r i f y i n g as the Ganges , atsome places bedecked with bright lilies and lotus flow ers.a at someplaces bubbl ingou t f rom pebbles an d sand, (and) at some placesspreadingout its pure and cool water."

T he mention hereof the holy r iver Ganga ,the Ganges, of Indiais very significant indeed. According to m yth i ca l t r ad i t i on ,Gangaissued from Vishnu's fee t and dropped into Siva's locks. Thisexplains the existence of the mixed emblems of Vishnu and Siva:iankha, chakra, triiula, paratu, etc., engraved a bove the inscription,

has been noticed and commented upon by Pro f . Dr N. J. K r o m in hisHindoe-JavaanscheQeschiedenis(H indu - JavaneseH istory) , Second, Revised

Edit ion, The Hague ,1931, pp. 102-03. K ern placesthe inscript ion in the fifthcentury A D., while accordingto K r o m it may belong to the midd le of theseventh centuryA. D. The inscript ion has been re-edi ted by the presentwri ter in his Expansion ofIndo-Aryan Culture, re- issued, Delhi, 1965, pp43-44. The information supplied in the sequel of thepresent article isp n t i r l y new , i t hav ing daw ned upon thepresent writer only subsequently.

2. N. J K r o m ,op. cit., p. 103.

3. It is mor e ac cord ing to thepoetic t radi t ion in India(kavi-samaya-khyati)thanthe actual existence thereof that rivers and oceans are described as havinglotuses and lili es in them (sarid-udadhi-gatat'n pankaj-endlvar-adi). Cf. TheKavyattbika, 4th edition, Calcutta, 1919,p. 70, quoting the Sahityadarfianaof Vis'vanathii,



TU K MA S SANSKRIT INSCRIPTION 219

as we have noticed above. There is something more about theinscript ion, which has escaped the notice of the scholars who haveearlier dealt with it in some way or the other. And that is its authorechoing Kalidasa, the greatest poet of India. We do not know whothe author of the Tuk Mas stanza is; but its very wording shows thathe wasfami l ia r with K alidasa ' sworks, especially w i t hhi s Raghuvamia.Tn fact, the stanza of the inscription is intimately reminiscent of thegreat poet's description of the holy river Gariga at its confluence withth e Yamuna, as found in the RaghuvamSa,Canto XIII , verses 54-57.It seems that our author modelled his stanza on these verses. In orderto demonst rate the close resemblance we quot e below the verses inquestion; wit h their translation.

kvachit prabha-lepibhir=indranMair=mukt&mayiyaskiir iv Snuvidhhiij

anyatra mala siia-pahkajanam ind}varair utkhachit-antar=eva//kvachit khaganarhpriya-Manasanam kadamba-samsargavat=\va

panktili /anyatra kal-aguru-datta-patra bhaktir*~bhuva3=chandana-

kalpit=sva //kvachi t prabha chandramasltamobhii=chhaya-vH\naih

dabaHkritêva /anyatra tubhra iarad-abhra-lekha randhreshvîvâlakshya-

nabhah-pradeia //kvachich=cha krishn-oraga-bhushan=evabhasm-angaraga

tanur=I^varasya /pa$y=anavadyafigivibhati Gariga bhinna-pravahaYamuna-

tarangaih / /Translation

"Look, O (my dear) beautiful (STta) ! how majestically is theGanges flowing,with it s flow broken up (here and there) by the ripplesof the Yamuna; at some places looking like a string of pearls inter-mixed with lustrous beads of saphire, and at others like a garlandof white lotuses intertwined with blue lilies; at some places lookinglike a row of swans fond of the Manasa lake mixed up with blackgeese, and at others like a strip of land besmeared with sandal pastedarkened (here and there) by foliage drawn with blackish unguent;at some places looking like a vast sheet of moon-shine variegated withpatches of darkness hidden under shadows, and at others like arolling mass of wintry white clouds with patches of the blue sky




peeping out of the intervening gaps; an d again at some places lookinglike the body of£ > i v a ,pow dered w ith w hite ashes and b edecked w ithblack serpents."

Notes

All the four verses make but one long sentences (dar.daka),each hemistich com prising a sub ordinate clause. The occasion isRama's-re turnwith he r spouse, Si t a , w on back after hi s victory overthe demon Ravana, f rom Lanka, in the Pushpaka vimana (aerialchariot), Ram a describ ingthe fleetinglandscape viewed fromup aboveduring the flight approaching Ayodhya . I tis again an Indian poetictradition that the waters of the r iver Ganga are fancied as pear l -whi tean d those of the r ive r Yam unaas blue-black. With this basic idea,the master-mind ofKal idasaweaves agarland of similes (Malopama)characteristic of hisflight of imaginat ion(Upama Kalidasasya). T heauthor of our Tuk Masstanza w as obviously influencedby the abovecited description. Apart fromth e repeated kvachit, hi s Suchy-ambwuhaor sus'iichy-amburuhai s but a paraphrase of K al idasa 'ssita-pankaja inthe first of the four verses.

Incidentallysome light is thrown b y this on the vexed questionof K alidasa 's t ime. It is clear that by the time of the Tuk Masinscription the fame of that great poet ha d crossed the Indian ocean.

T he Trave l s of Prana Pu r i

B Y

B. D. M l R C H A N D A N I

It is r emarkab lehow far f rom India the wanderings of ourSanyasis sometimes took them. In may 1792 Jonathan D uncan,who af terwards became Governor of B omb ay, m et a Sanyasi l iv ingat Benares who had been a great traveller: he had travelled no tonly in India , Nepal , Tibet, Ceylon an d Malaya b ut also in thecountries of Central an d Western Asia an d gone as far as Moscow.T o gratify the curiosi ty of the Englishman, the Sanyasi who wasa very intelligent m an consented to the story of his travels beingcommit ted to w rit ing, f rom hi s oral deliveryin H indus tan i , b y aservant of the former; and a few years later, principal extractsfrom it translated into English were pub lishedb y Jonathan Duncan,together w itha portrait of the Sanyasi, "in the Asiatic Researches(vol. v, 1799, pp.37-48). As to the veracity of the Sanyasi JonathanD uncan entertained no doubts whatever. "I have" he r emarked ,"the utmost reliance, on our traveller's no t designingto impose inan y part of his narrative, b ut al lowance must b e made fo r defectsof memory, in a relation extending through so many years, andcomprehending such a n u m b e r of objects." Also, for tunately fo rus, our Sanyasi was not like th e average Indian or Tibetan Chersipilgrim in respect of xvhom Tucci and Ghersi (Secrets of Tibet,p. 13)observe: " The motive of this vagabondageis not a desire for newexperience; perhaps manyof the places w hich the pilgrim passesthrough he does not note and does not see, so weary is he so hungry,so absorbed in his prayers. H e travels in order to acquire religiousmerit,, to visit the holy places of the faith, to draw nearthe God .The pi lgr image means real ly detachment f romlife.'' '

What Jonathan D uncan givesus in the Asiatic Researches isabare outline of the Sanyasi 's narrative. Y et it makes an enthrallingstory. It is astonishing that this man, no t from an y motive ofw orldly gain but impel led by piouszeal and a rovingspirit, travelledto so many par ts ot Asia, and to Russia as w ell , overtw o hundredyearsago. It w as not a trad ition in India for our missionaries, orour pilgrims, w ho w ent to foreign lands to leave a record of their

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Tuk Mas (Central Java) Sanskrit Inscription Java