01The night on bare ground
The Bhitari pillar inscription, near Ghazipur, says that when he set out to restore the shaken fortunes of his family he spent a night sleeping on the bare earth, and that he met the Hunas in battle and the earth shook under the clash. It ends with him going to his mother, tears in her eyes, as Krishna went to Devaki after his victory. The inscription records an image of Vishnu, as Sharngin, that he installed there. The Huna danger was real: within a generation of his death their kings Toramana and Mihirakula were ruling in central India.
02Repairing Sudarshana
The Sudarshana lake at Girnar, dug under Chandragupta Maurya and repaired under Rudradaman, burst its dam again in his reign. His governor of Saurashtra, Parnadatta, and Parnadatta’s son Chakrapalita, who governed the city, rebuilt it in Gupta year 136–137 (455–457 CE). The account is cut on the same rock at Junagadh that bears Ashoka’s edicts and Rudradaman’s inscription, so one boulder holds seven centuries of care for a single reservoir. His Kahaum pillar of 461 CE records the gift of a Jain devotee, and his gold coins give him the title Kramaditya.
