Ghazipur District - Land Of Pillars

                                              Pahladpur Stone Pillar Inscription

                        Ghazipur district has Three Stone Pillars .One is in Saidpur Bhitri ,Second is in Latiya , Zamania and Third was in Pahladpur ,Mahaich Paragna , Zamania . Now it is in Bnaras . No doubt this district was a buddhist place .

                                                                    latiya , zamania

                           This inscription was discovered by Captain T.S Burt , of the Engineers and was first brought to notice in 1838, in the Four.Beng.As.Soc.Vol.7,P.1055,where Mr.James Prinsep published the text of it,as read by Pandit Kamalakanta from Captain Burt’ fascimile, and, with the text, his own translation.

                                                 Latiya Pillar

             Pahladpur is a village near the right bank of the Ganges six miles east by south of Dhanapur ( Chandauli district),the chief town of the Mahaich Paragana in the Zamaniya ( The Zamania, Zeemeniah, and Zumeniah ) Tahsil or Sub-Divisions of the Ghazipur District. The inscription is on a sandstone monolith column, about three feet in diameter; polished and rounded for a length of twenty seven feet, with a rough base of nine feet ,the total length being thirty six feet, which was found lying here half buried in the ground and was afterwards,in or about 1853,removed to Banaras and set up in the grounds of the Sanskrit College there,on the north side, where it still stands. At the village of Lathiya,one and half miles East of Zamaniya , there stands another sandstone column of the Pahladpur pillar; but it is not inscribed.

                                                                        Bhitri Pillar

              The Writing, which covers a space of about  4 inch 11 centimeter broad by 4 centimeter high, is about ten feet above the place where the column starts from it present pedestal; and commencing on the north west ,it runs a little more than half way round the column. The greater part of it is in a state of very good preservation;  but a few letters in the third pada of the verse, containing the name of the king,  if it was  recorded, have unfortunately quite peeled off, and ar entirely illegible. There are several inscription now published,- the size of the letters varies from 1/2” to 3/4”. The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets. They include the so-called indo-Scythic  form of m, which disappeared  in Northern India very soon after the commencement of the early least as early as any other inscription in this volume.- The language is Sanskrit ; and the inscription consists only of one verse, preceded by the word iha, ‘here’. – The orthpgraphy presents nothing calling for remark.

           The inscription is not dated, is non-sectarian. It only commemorates the fame of a king whose name, if it was recorded, is unfortunately peeled away and lost. Mr. Prinsep suggested, from the comparison in the last pdda of the verse, that his name was Lokapala. 

               From the rhyming ends of the four padas, it seems that his name must have ended in pala. But, in the third pada of the verse, we have certainly the well-known name of Sisupala ; and,- wether the name as it stands  here is that of the king himself, or is that of the Puranic king Sisupala of Chedi, with whom he is compared,- the inference seems to be that the name of the king, whose inscription is on the pillar, was Sisupala. The chief interest of the inscription, howeer is in the early date of it, as shewn by the characters and in there being the possibility that is a record of the Pallavas in Northern India. The king is called Parthiv-anika-palah. This might be rendered by simply “the protector of the armies of the king.” But, parthiva has so much the appearance of standing as a proper name here, ¹ that I think the correct translation is “the protector of the armies of the parthivas.” And, if Dr. oldhausen’s derivation of the name pallava, through the form Prthava, i.e. Parthian, ² can be upheld, there will be no objection to considering that we have in this record a fuller and more completely Sanskritised form of the early name of this tribe.

                                TRANSLATION.

Here, he,-who is possessed of extensive victory and fame; who is the protector of true religion of the warrior caste; who always cherishes princes; who is the protector ofd the Parthivas ;¹ who day after day…………. Sisupala …………………………….. ,- was created, if he were a fifth Lokapala,² by (the God) Vidhatri.