The Dachhan inscription naming Nantadeva

A short record of work beside a river

The Dachhan inscription names a ruler called Nantadeva and a man called Mahimagupta in connection with a construction project, possibly a bridge. Its four lines offer evidence for activity outside Kashmir’s royal capital, but several readings and the conversion of its date remain disputed.

Ram Chandra Kak published the inscription in his 1924 Antiquities of Marev-Wadwan. He described Dachhan as the chief village of the surrounding region, on the left bank of the Marev-Send. A wooden cantilever bridge crossed the river there when he visited. He explicitly described that bridge as modern, while suggesting that earlier crossings might have existed.

The inscribed boulder and the bridge visible during Kak’s survey must therefore be kept separate. The report does not establish that an eleventh-century wooden structure survived into the twentieth century. What potentially connects an earlier crossing with the location is the inscription and the proposed reading of a difficult word.

The boulder, script and published image

Kak describes a large, hard-grained granite boulder, most of it buried in the ground. Its surface had not been dressed into a smooth panel before carving. The four lines were uneven: the first extended less than two feet, while the third and fourth exceeded five feet.

The writing is in Sharada. Kak’s published plate XIII supplies an image of the inscription, while the facing discussion gives a transcription, translation and notes on doubtful letters. The reproduction is evidence for what the early publication recorded; it is not a recent photograph documenting the stone’s present condition.

The uneven surface and uncertain letters make the editorial notes particularly important. A clean printed transcription can look more definite than the underlying evidence. Kak marked proposed restorations and doubtful readings, and those marks affect the meaning of the record rather than merely its spelling.

Names, date formula and the possible bridge

In Kak’s reading, the opening invokes Om and gives year 12, followed by the twelfth day of the bright half of Chaitra. The ruler’s name appears in a phrase referring to the reign of the illustrious Nantadeva. The next line associates Mahimagupta with a place Kak reads as Sri-chiri.

Kak could not identify that place securely. He noted the resemblance of its name to Kiar, a nearby glen, without treating the resemblance as proof. It would therefore be misleading to supply exact modern coordinates for Mahimagupta’s residence on the strength of this note.

The construction is translated as a possible bridge because of the proposed word setu. Kak attributes the reading of the crucial syllable to Mukunda Ram Shastri, but says that reading is very doubtful. He considered the position of the inscription, which he believed remained at its original site, a reason to favour the interpretation.

The final line includes the designation karmapati. Kak translated it as superintendent of works and suggested an overseer or mistri entrusted with carrying out the project. The remainder of the line was uncertain in his transcription. The record does not give a complete biography of the worker, a construction account or a description of the finished structure.

Why the year has two proposed conversions

Kak proposed that Nantadeva was Ananta, ruler of Kashmir from 1028 to 1063. On that identification, he expanded the abbreviated year 12 to Vikrama year 1112 and gave its equivalent as 1055. His wording made the conclusion conditional on the identification of the ruler.

B. K. Kaul Deambi’s 1982 Corpus of Sarada Inscriptions offers a different reading of the calendar. On pages 149–150 he treats year 12 as presumably Laukika and gives 1036. He reads the resident’s place as Viri, the overseer as Mahi, and the last part as referring to a composer who was a son of Laksaka. He allows bridge or embankment for setu. His edition states that its text comes from Kak’s published photograph, so it is a later examination of that image, not a report of a new excavation.

The disagreement concerns the era to which the abbreviated year belongs. It cannot be settled merely by observing that both proposed dates fall within Ananta’s reign. Nor does an abbreviated year become a regnal year simply because the text also names a ruler.

The catalogue now places the inscription at the earlier proposed date, 1036, and displays 1055 as an alternative. That ordering is provisional, not a decision that the calendar problem has been resolved. The traditional Chaitra date remains in the article; no Gregorian month or day has been assigned.

What the inscription can say about political geography

Kak connected the inscription with the question of Kashmir’s authority in Kishtwar. He argued that Ananta’s campaigns towards Chamba and Vallapura required prior possession of Kishtwar and Padar along the route. He also observed that Kalhana did not separately describe a conquest of Kishtwar in the relevant campaign narrative.

This is an historical argument combining a proposed royal identification, the findspot and a reading of campaign geography. The inscription itself is not a boundary charter. It does not enumerate provinces, define a frontier or explain the administrative arrangements of every valley along the route.

The ruler’s name is therefore valuable evidence, but it must retain its limits. Even if Nantadeva is accepted as Ananta, further evidence is needed to describe the form and extent of authority exercised locally. The document cannot support modern territorial conclusions simply by being placed on a present-day map.

Local work and questions still open

Mahimagupta’s appearance is important because the record concerns an undertaking associated with a named person rather than merely a royal succession. The possible reference to a works supervisor also suggests that responsibility for a project could be recorded through more than one role.

The surviving reading does not identify everyone who laboured on the project or establish their social position, wages or conditions. It gives no dimensions, building material, cost or reliable reconstruction of the bridge. Those details should not be supplied from the modern cantilever crossing described by Kak.

The Dachhan stone should also be distinguished from the writings in the nearby Bathastal caves, which Kak discusses next in his report. Proximity and publication in the same memoir do not make those separate inscriptions one monument or give them the same date.

A fuller study requires comparison of the stone, early reproductions and later readings, together with a careful examination of the calendar formula. The present account preserves both published date proposals and the uncertain construction term, while making the named people and the history of the reading accessible.