Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) discovered remains of an ancient temple dating back to the Gupta period (5th century) in Bilsarh village in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district.
About the Discovery
ASI has discovered two decorative pillars of an ancient temple dating back to the Gupta period (5th century).
The stairs of the temple had ‘shankhalipi’ inscriptions.
The inscription possibly reads ‘Mahendraditya’ which was the title of king Kumaragupta I.
This discovery becomes significant since only two other structural temples from the Gupta age have been found so far — Dashavatara Temple (Deogarh) and Bhitargaon Temple (Kanpur Dehat).
About Shankhalipi Script
It is also called a “shell-script”. It is found in inscriptions across north-central India and dates back between the 4th and 8th centuries.
The inscriptions consist of a small number of characters, suggesting that the shell inscriptions are names or auspicious symbols or a combination of the two.
Both Shankhalipi and Brahmi are stylised scripts used primarily for names and signatures.
Discovery in India
The script was discovered in 1836 on a brass trident in Uttarakhand’s Barahat by English scholar James Prinsep.
A year later, two more similar scripts were found at Nagarjuna group of caves in the Barabar Hills near Gaya.
Indian Sites with Shell Inscription: Prominent sites with shell inscriptions include the Mundeshwari Temple in Bihar, the Udayagiri Caves in Madhya Pradesh, Mansar in Maharashtra and some of the cave sites of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
