Note 75 — Chapter V · THE KSHATRAPAS (b.c. 70–a.d. 398.)

To Rudrasiṃha’s reign belongs the Gunda inscription carved on a stone found at the bottom of an unused well in the village of Gunda in Hálár in North Káthiáváḍa.75 It is in six well preserved lines of old Nágarí letters of the Kshatrapa type. The writing records the digging and building of a well for public use on the borders of a village named Rasopadra by the commander-in-chief Rudrabhúti an Ábhíra son of Senápati Bápaka. The date is given both in words and in numerals as 103, ‘in the year’ of the king the Kshatrapa Svámi Rudrasiṃha, apparently meaning in the year 103 during the reign of Rudrasiṃha. The genealogy given in the inscription is: 1 Chashṭana; 2 Jayadáman; 3 Rudradáman; 4 Rudrasiṃha, the order of succession being clearly defined by the text, which says that the fourth was the great grandson of the first, the grandson of the second, and the son of the third. It will be noted that Dámájaḍaśrí and Jivadáman the fifth and sixth Kshatrapas have been passed over in this genealogy probably because the inscription did not intend to give a complete genealogy but only to show the descent of Rudrasiṃha in the direct line.