The Indian Museum inscription from Ratnagiri, Orissa
By Debala Mitra
Summary
This article examines a fragmentary inscribed stone slab from Ratnagiri, Orissa, housed in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, catalogued as 1080100100. The author, Deplala Mitra, identifies the inscription as containing fragments of the famous *Pratityasamutpada-sutra* with its *nirodha* portion. The text is written in Sanskrit using Gupta characters on an oblong stone of unspecified original length and a thickness of 434 inches, though the extant part is irregular in shape with broken and flaked surfaces. The inscription begins on a flat surface, continues on the adjacent bottom side with larger letters, and concludes on the reverse bottom side. The left edge is completely lost, but the right edge preserves a few letters of the Buddhist creed in three lines. The author notes that this is the only inscription bearing the *Pratityasamutpada* text discovered in Orissa, with other known examples found at Kurram (dated to A.D. 100), Gopalpur, Kasia, and Nalanda, all generally belonging to the Gupta age and found deposited inside reliquaries to acquire merit, as attested by the Chinese pilgrim I-tsing. The lines run irregularly, the letters are un-uniform due to poor preservation and careless engraving, and the reading is presented as far as it can be deciphered, with the first part of the text being largely illegible. The author also mentions another inscription containing the same text found during his own excavation at Ratnagiri, which similarly ends with the Buddhist creed.
AI-generated summary, automatically checked against the article text.
Conclusion
The inscription from the Indian Museum, originally identified as a 6th-century relic, has been re-examined and deciphered as a fragmentary text of the *Pratityasamutpada-sutra* with its *nirodha* portion. This discovery is highly significant because it represents the only known stone inscription of this specific text found in Orissa, a region where the text has previously only appeared on copper caskets, bricks, and copper plates. The inscription is composed in Sanskrit using Gupta characters, and its irregular layout and poor preservation suggest it was not meticulously crafted, yet its content aligns with a similar text found during recent excavations at Ratnagiri. The presence of this text in the Gupta age, as evidenced by other inscriptions, highlights its widespread use during that period, often deposited for merit. This finding enriches the archaeological record of Ratnagiri and underscores the site's importance in early Buddhist history.