Place · inscribed rock · India
Girnār rock inscriptions (Junāgaḍh)
Also known as Ashoka edict, Girnar rock, Girnār rock edict, Rudradaman, Skandagupta
The Girnar rock near Junagadh, Gujarat, where three empires wrote on one stone face: Ashoka's fourteen Major Rock Edicts in Prakrit Brahmi (257 BCE), Mahakshatrapa Rudradaman's Junagadh prashasti in Sanskrit (c.150 CE, the earliest known long Sanskrit inscription), and Skandagupta's record of around 455 CE on the repair of the Sudarshana lake dam. The composite inscription site reads as the condensed epigraphic autobiography of three Indian political traditions — Mauryan Buddhist policy, Shaka-era Sanskrit court culture, and Gupta imperial maintenance. The Sudarshana lake, originally built by Chandragupta Maurya's governor Pushyagupta, was repaired by three further dynasties over 800 years.
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 21.525, 70.467
Worth knowing
The same boulder carries Ashoka's fourteen rock edicts, Rudradāman's Sanskrit praśasti of c. 150 CE, and a Skandagupta inscription — three dynasties on one stone.
Connections (7)
- Imperial inscription atPātaliputra
The Girnar rock near Junagadh carries the fourteen major edicts, and then two later empires wrote on the same surface: Rudradaman's Sanskrit prashasti of about 150 CE, the earliest substantial Sanskrit inscription known, and a Gupta record of the fifth century. All three concern the same reservoir and its dam. One rock therefore documents three imperial administrations and the maintenance of one piece of infrastructure across seven centuries.
- Script continuity withPrayāga / Prayagraj/ Allahabad
The Allahabad Pillar and Girnar Rock connect India’s political and cultural landscapes across centuries. The Allahabad Pillar bears Ashoka’s edicts alongside later inscriptions of Samudragupta and Jahangir, while Girnar preserves Ashokan edicts and inscriptions of Rudradaman. Together, they reveal how the same monumental sites accumulated layers of political authority and civilisational memory.
- Life routeNarsinh Mehtā
Junāgadh under Girnār is Narsinh Mehtā's town, and the hill above it carries Ambā, Gorakhnāth, Dattātreya and the Jain temples. A Nagar Brahmin outcast for singing with untouchables came out of one of the most crowded sacred landscapes in western India. His Vaishnava jana to, defining a good person as one who feels another's pain and does not condescend in helping, was sung at Gandhi's ashram every day and is now Gujarat's state song.
- Imperial inscription atSkandagupta
Skandagupta's Junagadh inscription records that his governor Parnadatta and Parnadatta's son Chakrapalita rebuilt the Sudarshana reservoir below Girnar after a flood in 455 — a dam first built under Chandragupta Maurya and repaired under Rudradaman three centuries earlier. Three empires maintained one lake, and each recorded the work on the same rock as the last.
- Imperial inscription atRudradāman I
Rudradaman's inscription of about 150 CE stands on the same boulder as Ashoka's fourteen major rock edicts, and it is the earliest substantial inscription in Sanskrit rather than Prakrit. It records that a cyclone burst the Sudarshana reservoir and that he rebuilt it from his own treasury without levying a tax or forced labour, in prose ornate enough that the language is part of the claim.
- Imperial inscription atAshoka
Ashoka's fourteen major rock edicts are cut on this boulder at the foot of Girnar, and his governor Tushaspha faced the Sudarshana dam with stone; Chandragupta Maurya had built it. Rudradaman repaired it in 150 CE and Skandagupta's men again in 455. Four dynasties across seven centuries recorded work on one reservoir on one rock, which is unique in Indian epigraphy.
- Site adjacencyJunagadh Uparkot
The edict rock stands on the road from Junagadh town to Girnar, and the Uparkot citadel above the town is the fortification the whole sequence of rulers who inscribed it held. Local tradition attributes the Uparkot's founding to the Yadavas who came west with Krishna, and it carries Mauryan-period Buddhist caves, Kshatrapa, Chudasama and Gujarat sultanate work in the same walls.
On these journeys
Sources
Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman
Open Girnār rock inscriptions (Junāgaḍh) in the repository →