Hathigumpha inscription
— — a king's life, scratched into stone.
Not only on a wall.
“Seventeen lines of Brahmi script cut into the overhanging rock above the Elephant Cave, in the Udayagiri hills west of Bhubaneswar. The inscription records the reign of Kharavela, king of Kalinga, year by year. It has stood open to the monsoons since about the second century before the Common Era, and the syllables are still legible.
Hathigumpha inscription, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The inscription is carved into the brow of a natural cavern in the Udayagiri hills, about six kilometres west of central Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Odisha. Udayagiri and the adjacent Khandagiri form a twin-hill complex of Jain rock-cut caves dating from the second and first centuries before the Common Era. Hathigumpha, the Elephant Cave, sits at the foot of Udayagiri and takes its name from the elephant figures carved beside it. The Archaeological Survey of India maintains the site as a centrally protected monument.
The text is engraved in seventeen lines of Brahmi script in Prakrit, in the early Mauryan-Sunga style. The rock is khondalite, a metamorphic stone common to the Eastern Ghats that weathers slowly and holds carved letters for centuries. The opening salutation, Namo arahantanam, marks the inscription as Jain. The lines record the deeds of Kharavela, king of Kalinga, year by year through his reign, including campaigns, temples built, canals reopened, and the recovery of a Jain image taken centuries earlier by a Nanda king.
Hathigumpha is conventionally placed in the second or first century before the Common Era, though scholars have proposed dates between roughly 200 and 50 BCE. The fifth year of Kharavela's reign mentions a canal first dug under the Nanda dynasty three centuries earlier, anchoring his rule loosely in time. The thirteenth year records the installation of relic shrines on Kumari Parvata, the older name for the Udayagiri hill. The text remains the principal source for the Mahameghavahana dynasty that ruled Kalinga after the Mauryan collapse.