Aihole inscription

Description

The inscription has 19 lines of Sanskrit in old Chalukyan script. It is on a stone set as a part of the east outer wall of the Meguti temple, with the text covering about 4.75 feet by 2 feet surface. The letters are between 0.5 and 0.62 inches in height. The stylistic difference suggests that the 18th and 19th lines were added later, not attributed to Ravikirti.

The Aihole inscription is in Sanskrit verse in classic chhandas (meters, Sanskrit prosody). The 17 original lines consist of 37 verses. The meters deployed include the standard shlokas in 7 verses, 2 in aupachchhandasika, 3 in arya, 4 of vasantatilaka, 5 in malini, 3 in sardulavikridita. Further verses use distinct cases of chandas such as upajati, indravajra and vamsastha. The strict rules of Sanskrit meters are visible in the Aihole inscription, which suggests that the early 7th-century Ravikirti wasa master of classical Sanskrit tradition.

The inscription is a prashasti. weaving mythologies. The author compares his patron Pulakesin II to legends and himself to some of the greatest Sanskrit poets such Kalidasa and Bharavi – revered in the Hindu tradition. The inscription borrows phrases from Kalidasa's influential work, from well known 6th and 7th-century inscriptions found in Nagarjuni hills, in Bodh-Gaya, and one of the earliest known inscriptions in Cambodia. Ravikirti builds upon several verses found in Raghuvaṃśa of Kalidasa and the Kirātārjunīya of Bharavi – famed works of Hindu Vishnu and Shiva traditions respectively. Ravikirti credits these authors by naming them indirectly in his Aihole inscription, by calling himself as good as them. The purity of the Sanskrit and the poetic flourishes of Ravikriti's composition in the alamkara-sastras place him "in the front rank of court-poets and writers of prashastis". According to Richard Salomon, the Aihole inscription excels as a literary form alongside many early Sanskrit inscriptions at Allahabad and Deopara.

The Aihole inscription is a Jain inscription opening with salutations to Jinendra in verse 1. A 'prashasti', it praises Pulakesin II for his generosity.

Date

The verses 33–34 of the inscription state the date, 3735 after the Bharata war, or saka samvat 556. This corresponds to 634–635 CE.

Inscription

The nineteen lines of the inscription have been variously translated, some of the music of the original lost in the European translation. The translation published by Kielhorn is as follows:

Significance

The Aihole inscription, with its different published translations has been a source of Deccan and Indian history in the 6th and 7th-century. It is also a source of controversies and inconsistencies when the claims in the Aihole inscriptions are compared to inscriptions found outside of Badami Chalukya realm. According to Richard Solomon – an Indologist specializing in epigraphical records, the Aihole inscription is a useful source of simple facts such as the date of Meguti Jain temple, Ravikirti's role in building it, the fame of Kalidasa, the state of language and literature in early 7th-century. The Aihole inscription is also significant by providing a definite terminus ante quem of 634 CE for both Kalidasa and Bharavi. The Aihole inscription has been a source of literary and political history close to Ravikirti's generation (early 7th century), but given the highly rhetorical style that blends historic myth, fiction and events, one aimed to boast and flatter one's employer in general public, it need not be historically accurate. Further, states Salomon, one must expect that a court poet would "gloss over, distort, or simply ignore their patron's military defeats". The Aihole inscription must be evaluated in light of independent and reliable corroborative sources, which unfortunately are quite limited.

Except for a few events, many of the claims in the Aihole inscription cannot be confirmed. The victory of Pulakesin II over Emperor Harsha can be corroborated in the writings of Xuanzang (Hsuan Tsang), the Chinese pilgrim who visited India in the 7th-century. However, if the Chinese record is to be read in full and trusted, then the Aihole inscription is glossing over many details. The Harsha-Pulakesin II war continued, records the Chinese pilgrim, because the troops and citizens of Harsha did not submit to Pulakeshin II. The first battle was indeed won by Pulakeshin, yet shortly thereafter it was Harsha who defeated Pulakeshin II near Narmada river in 612 CE (about 20 years before the Ravikirti's inscription). If inscriptions found in central India and the Chinese record are to be trusted, then there was a truce after both sides having won a war, Harsha ruled peacefully for next 30 years to the north of the Narmada river, while Pulakeshin II stayed in the Deccan region. Some scholars have questioned whether the war occurred in 612 CE, or 620 CE, or in early 630s CE because inscriptions found elsewhere are not consistent with the claims of Ravikirti. The Aihole Prashasti is, at its best, a panegyric record that records some battles.

This Chalukyan era Meguti temple inscription is inconsistent with many later Chalukyan inscriptions, states Altekar. For example, later Chalukyan inscriptions allege that its early rulers from Jayasimha and Pulakesin II defeated early Rashtrakuta kings, yet the Aihole inscription makes no mention of these early Rashtrakuta kings. This suggests that stories were being fabricated and inscribed on stone or copper plates. Similarly, Chalukyan copper plates state that Mangalesha handed over the kingdom to Pulakesin II when he came of age, with the added flourish that "can a scion of the Chalukya family ever swerve from the path of duty?". The later records thus assert that there was no war of succession between Mangalesha and Pulakesin II, something the Aihole inscription clearly mentions. Both cannot be true. Either Aihole inscription or the copper plates of Chalukyan dynasty are telling a "pious lie". According to Altekar, this is a gross contradiction, and then sides with Meguti inscription's version. Further, Altekar disagrees with Fleet, and interprets Indra as the name of a real king, rather than deity Indra (Sakra).

According to Raychaudhuri, Ravikirti's claims in verse 22 of the Aihole inscription are unreal and likely an exaggeration in light of inscriptions found in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, along with the records of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang. Malwa remained independent, as did the Gurjaras. The evidence outside of the Aihole inscription suggests that they were not Pulakesin II's feudatories.