File:404 CE, Mandsaur Krishna temple inscription, Naravarman era, Madhya Pradesh.jpg

English: This is an incomplete yet important inscription about a lost Hindu (Krishna-Vasudeva) temple from about 404 CE. The inscribed stone was broken into three or more pieces at some point in its history, and the pieces are scattered in Mandsaur. Only two parts have been found; the rest is missing.

The first part of the stone slab was found in 1912 by a farmer ploughing his field in Todi village near the Mandsaur Fort Gate near the Shivna river bank. The second fragment was given by a local Indian to Garde about ten years later, while his team  was busy digging a mound containing temple ruins. The fragments physically fit, have the same script and style.

Taking the fragments together, the surviving section of the inscription consists of 9 lines, but the contents of the inscription imply that it was a 14 line epigraph. It is a poem in anustubh meter, composed in good classical Sanskrit but with a few non-standard features. It is written in late Brahmi script of the type found in Malwa–Bundelkhand region of India during the 4th and 5th centuries.

The inscription was originally called "Mandsaur Inscription of Naravarman" when the first fragment was found. However, it is now clear that king Naravarman was merely mentioned in the inscription and had nothing to do with it. The inscription was created by someone else, whose name is likely in the lost fragments. It is about a Krishna-Vasudeva temple completed during the reign of Naravarman.

This inscription is important because   *it confirms the continued popularity of the Krishna-Vasudeva tradition in central India; he is already mentioned in pillars and inscriptions 500 years earlier in Vidisha district (2nd century BCE).

• it confirms the existence of a Hindu temple around 400 CE.
• it mentions the celebration of a festival of Krishna after the monsoons in early autumn (the festive season for modern Hindus).
• it states that the reigning king Naravarman is the son of Simhavarman and the grandson of Jayavarman, establishing an important historical lineage of kings in ancient India during the third and fourth centuries.
• the inscription states that the donor's father was Varnavriddhi, grandfather was Jaya, mother was Jayamitra, and maternal grandmother was Balasura. This is notable for the equal respect the donor gives to both his paternal and maternal sides.
• it states that the donor is of Gargayana gotra, and further implies that the donor is a wealthy merchant; a merchant in classical caste system would be neither a Brahmin nor a Kshatriya; he would be a Vaishya (lower caste). It further states, with poetic flourish, that the donor has realized that life and the world are impermanent, has taken a refuge in Krishna, and so built a kṛṣṇenāddhyuṣitas – a building for Krishna-Vasudeva, which is interpreted as a temple for Krishna. This is therefore yet another of many inscriptions that survive from ancient India where Hindu temples were built by a wealthy lower caste person.
• the inscription mentions Dasapura (ancient name of Mandsaur), thus confirming that the original inscription was indeed engraved in Mandsaur.

For scholarly details and discussion of this inscription, see:

• Daniel Balogh (2019), Inscriptions of the Aulikaras and Their Associates, De Gruyter, pp. 35–43
• RG Bhandarkar (1913), Epigraphic Notes and Questions XVIII Mandasor Inscription of Naravarman, The Indian Antiquary, Vol 42, pp. 161–63

Note: This is a photo of a 2D artwork created in the 5th-century, who ink rubbing was published in 1888. Wikimedia's PD-Art guidelines apply. Any rights I have as a photographer, I donate it irrevocably to the public domain through Wikimedia Commons.