The Gangadhar Stone Inscription of Viśvavarman is an epigraphic record documenting that documents of a temple at Gangadhar town in the fifth century during the reign of the Aulikara king Viśvavarman.
Location
Gangadhar is located in Jhalawar district, Kota division, Rajasthan, India. The town occupies an old fortified and moated site on the banks of the Kali Sindh River.
Publication
The text of the Gangadhar inscription was edited and published by John Faithfull Fleet in 1888. It was subsequently edited by D. C. Sircar.
Description and Contents
The inscription, written in Sanskrit, records the building of a temple of Viṣṇu and an accompanying shrine for the mother goddesses or Mātṛkas by a king's minister named Mayūrākṣaka. The goddess shrine is specifically described as a "terrifying abode of the divine Mothers" (mātṛṇāṃ veśmātyugraṃ). The inscription is dated anno 480, on the bright thirteenth day of the month Kārttika. The year corresponds to 423-24 CE.
Historical Significance
The Gangadhar inscription is important for the history of Indian religion because, in the description of the Mother goddess shrine, it provides the first documented use of the term ḍakinī, a class of goddesses in Tantric traditions It is not known exactly what texts and ritual traditions were used in Gangadhar in the early 5th century, but they were almost certainly Shaiva.
The description of the goddesses has also prompted debate because it appears, at first glance, to give the oldest description of a Tantric temple. The discussion of the word tantra in the record has been summarised by David Lorenzen. These interpretations were revisited by Bruce M. Sullivan who noted: "To me, it makes a lot more sense to take it in the usual meaning for tāntra, namely, stringed instrument. Thus, we get the climatic effects mentioned in the inscription being caused by music (accompanied by booming clouds), not by “magic rites” (Fleet) nor by tantric texts (Lorenzen)." Responding indirectly to Sullivan's call for the inscription to be studied closely, Michael Willis noted that the word given is tāntra rather than tantra. Following André Padoux, Willis remarked that "... the word tāntra in the inscription has little to do with occidental Tantrism but rather with a stringed musical instrument, i.e. an object on which the strings are ‘stretched’ (√tan) across a curved frame." He thus re-edited and re-translated the relevant verse as follows:
mātṛṇāñ ca [*pracu]ditaghanātyartthanihrādinīnām |
tāntrodbhūtaprabalapavanodvarttitāmbhonidhīnām |
[- - - - - - ]gatam idaṃ ḍākinīsaṃ prakīrṇṇam |
veśmātyuggraṃ nṛpatisacivo kārayat puṇyahetoḥ ||
A place filled with ḍākinī-s and characterised by ...
An abode of the Mothers whose thunderous cries impel the rain clouds,
and whose treasure – the waters – bursts forth
with the mighty wind produced by their lyre.
