The Susunia Inscription as an Origin of the Chakraswamin Sect

THE SAGA OF Bengal's prolonged, glittering and ongoing misfortune has been written in four proud, ruinous initials—B, B, B, B: Bhaktiyar, the British, Basu, Banerjee—each a bright, heartless stroke across a vandalised canvas.

What was once Classical Bengal, that dream-like province of rivers and rice and Sanskrit and devotion and culture and poetry disappeared eons ago. This misfortune excludes a big chunk of what used to be Bengal just 80 years ago — Bangladesh. This eastern half continues to drift away towards extinction, like Sandhyavandanam dissolving into the darkness that follows Sandhya.

Yet even in its diminished state, the sacred Vanga Desha has given the world something rare, iridescent and irreplaceable: the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, one of the oldest and most exquisite expressions of devotion, a cool flame that has burned quietly, incessantly, radiating spiritual knowledge and rapturous devotion.

Among its earliest and most singular manifestations was the sect of Chakraswamin, already flourishing in the fourth century CE, when the world was still young and India was golden under the Guptas. The story of its rediscovery has the unstated glamour of a forgotten Tirtha-Yatra that suddenly becomes significant. And thrilling.

IN 1895 NAGENDRA NATH BASU – a collector of archaeological artifacts, historian, writer and founder of the Kayastha Sabha – copied an inscription and sent it to his friend Pandit Haraprasad Shastri. The Pandit recognized at once that something splendid and momentous had been uncovered. He dispatched his brilliant pupil Rakhal Das Banerji— the victim of John Marshal’s racism —to journey from Calcutta to Bankura, then to the green, modest rise of Susunia Hill. There, beside a small stream and beneath the casual ruin of a waterfall that had long since collapsed a cave, the words awaited Rakhal Das Banerji. On the back wall of the cave. Three brief lines in Sanskrit written in the northern Brahmi datable to the fourth century CE.

पुश्करणाधिपतेर्महाराज श्रीसिङ्घ्हणवर्मणः पुत्रस्य

महाराज श्रीचन्द्रवर्मणः कृतिः

चक्रस्वामिनः दासाग्रेणातिसृष्टः ||

puśkaraṇādhipatermahārāja śrīsiṅghhaṇavarmaṇaḥ putrasya

mahārāja śrīcandravarmaṇaḥ kṛtiḥ

cakrasvāminaḥ dāsāgreṇātisṛṣṭaḥ || 

The work of the illustrious Maharaja Chandravarman, the son of the illustrious Maharaja Singhanavarman, the lord of Pushkarana. Dedicated by the chief of the servants of the wielder of the discus (Cakrasvāmin).

Above the text was the image of the Sudarshana Chakra, its spokes etched like flames alive with light, carved with a craftsman's expert hand. It right away shows the existence of a thriving Vaishnava Sampradaya in the region.  

The impact of the discovery of this inscription was far-reaching. It is still known eponymously as the Susunia Rock Inscription of Chandravarman. For the next three or so decades, it was subjected to relentless discussions in all notable scholarly journals including but not limited to Epigraphia Indica, Bangia Sahitya Parishad Patrika and Indian Antiquary. Another eminent proof of its primacy is the fact that D.C. Sircar included it as a primary source (No. 40) in his masterly Select Inscriptions Bearing On Indian History And Civilization.   

CHANDRAVARMAN HAD BEEN a notable king of the Pushkarana region — now, the Pokharna or Pakhanna village about 40 Kms northeast of Susunia. He was the contemporary of Samudragupta, that splendid and prolific conqueror who swept through Āryāvarta and transformed Chandravarman into his vassal. The famous Prayaga Prasasti composed by his minister and court poet Harishena tells us of the importance of this conquest:

But conquest did not destroy culture. And so, in his own special corner of the world, Chandravarman continued as before. What is also clearly evident from the Prasasti is that ancient Vanga-desha was an inseparable part of Āryāvarta, which was once an abundant forest region.

In the Susunia Inscription, we see that Chandravarman declares himself the foremost dāsāgra (servant) of Chakraswamin (Vishnu, the discus-bearer), and in that quiet avowal, he planted a seed that would flower across centuries and provinces. By the eighth century it shone in Purnia, Baigram, Paharpur, even penetrating the slopy hills of Meghalaya.

And then, under the long, benevolent and nourishing shadow of the Guptas, who called themselves Paramabhagavatas, the Chakrasvamin sect spread rapidly. There is every reason to believe that the sect travelled to major parts of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. In H.C. Roychoudhury’s words, the Guptas were

In the eleventh century, a bronze Murti of Chakrasvamin, nearly the height of a man, stood in the temple at Thanesar in Haryana, rivalling in sanctity the shrines of Krishna at Mathura, Vrindavan and Dwaraka. In Alberuni’s chronicle,

And far down the gleaming corridor of time, in the thirteenth century, Chakradhar Swami drank deep from the same luminous fount of the Chakrasvami sect when he founded the Mahanubhava Sampradaya, which  recognises five major deities in its pantheon:

 1. Sri Krishna

2. Dattatreya

3. Chakrapani

4. Govinda

5. Chakradhara Prabhu — the founder of this sect, regarded as an avatara of Sri Krishna himself.

Thus runs the cord of spiritual and devotional continuity, bright and unbroken, all the way up to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the greatest Vaishnava exponent from Gauda Desha. He had a boundless treasure to draw from when he incarnated on earth. A treasure that predated him by an entire millennium. He not only ingested it in his antaranga but saved Sanatana Dharma in a Bengal crushed under the weight of Muslim oppression.

The Susunia inscription remains, preserved now as one of those small, stubborn monuments that refuse to go extinct. Its breast couches the ennobling history of a profound and timeless devotional tradition that millions of Hindus follow unaware of its obscure origins. Like how we marvel at the sight of the Sapta-Sindhus forgetting their source as a humble stream.

Postscript

Thankfully, and despite the Communists and Mamata Banerjee, the Susunia Rock Inscription has been preserved as an ASI-protected site. The Susunia hill, like most others, has become a trekking spot and tourist attraction. Luxury resorts have sprung up in the area.

Chakrasvamin shares the same plight as that of other Devis and Devatas residing on hilltops and riverbanks. Chandravarman has become a synonymn for amnesia.     

|| Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya ||