Writings: Hinduism
The Dadhimati Mata inscription
The Dadhimati Mata inscription is a stone slab from a goddess temple in Marwar, western India, with 13 lines of Sanskrit. Its last line gives the year 289, which the first editor reads as the Gupta era, or 608 CE. He identifies a verse in line 11 as a quotation from the Devi Mahatmya.
Last reviewed:
Three dates, kept apart
The text's date: the tradition's view
6th to 9th century CE (the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, which write that the Devi Mahatmya, popularly called the Chandi, was composed sometime in those centuries; its page names no author, and its dating overlaps the historians' range)
The text's date: critical scholars' view
about 400 to 800 CE across three estimates (Alf Hiltebeitel: probably about 400 to 600; Pargiter, in 1904: very probably the 6th or the 8th century; Cambridge University Library's cataloguers: probably the early second half of the first millennium CE)
This copy made
608 CE (the year 289 in the Gupta era, as Ram Karna of Jodhpur reads the numerals in the last line; he gives reasons for the Gupta era over the Vikrama and Harsha eras, and no other reading of the era appears in the sources used)
This copy found
The 1911 to 1912 edition says the slab was found lying upside down in a corner of the temple hall. It gives no year and no finder, and it lists two earlier publications.
What it is
The Dadhimati Mata inscription is a stone slab with 13 lines of Sanskrit, kept in the hall of the Dadhimati Mata temple. The 1911 to 1912 edition says the Dahima brahmans honor the goddess as their family goddess; the sources used here include no later account of the temple or from the community.1
The slab is a record of gifts. A community of Dadhya brahmans (priestly families), led by a man named Avighnanaga, addresses the goddess, and lines 3 to 10 list the donors, their fathers, and the amounts they gave. A ruler named Dhruhlana is mentioned in passing, and the editor could not say who he was or where he ruled.1
A verse, a prayer to the goddess, stands in line 11. The editor's general remark says lines 11 and 12, but he places the verse in line 11 and says line 12 lists three more donors. He identifies the verse as a quotation from the Devi Mahatmya, a Sanskrit text in praise of the goddess that forms part of the Markandeya Purana. A Purana is a Sanskrit compendium of old stories about creation, the gods, and kings.123
How the copy was dated
The last line gives the date as the 13th day of the dark half of the month of Shravana, in the year 289, written in numerals. Ram Karna of Jodhpur, who first deciphered the stone, takes the year as the Gupta era and gives 608 CE. He equates it with the year 665 of the Vikrama count.1
He gives three reasons for choosing the Gupta era over the Vikrama or Harsha eras. The numerals follow forms known from Gupta-period and related writing. The letters match those of an inscription of King Yashodharman at Mandasor. And the Gupta kings' rule ended at about the same time.1 The sources used here report no one who reads the era otherwise. For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.
The text: its date and authorship
The date strip marks the Devi Mahatmya, the text the editor says the stone quotes.
A Vedanta order's account, and the text's own
The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are spiritual organizations of monks and lay devotees that name Vedanta as the chief catalyst of the change they work for.4 On the Belur Math site they write that the Devi Mahatmya, popularly called the Chandi, is part of the Markandeya Purana but treated as an independent scripture. They add that devotees of the Divine Mother, especially in Bengal, Kerala, and some parts of Tamil Nadu, regard it as the most sacred and valued scripture. They date the text to sometime between the 6th and 9th centuries and name no author.5
A Cambridge catalog record of a copy shows that the text opens with the sage Markandeya speaking.6 No statement on the text from a Shakta tradition (centered on the goddess Shakti) was found.7
The historians' view
Alf Hiltebeitel, in an entry of 1987, dates the Devi Mahatmya probably to about 400 to 600 CE and writes that it was included in the Markandeya Purana.2 The Cambridge cataloguers Daniele Cuneo and Camillo Formigatti hold that it was probably written in the early second half of the first millennium CE.6
F. E. Pargiter argued in 1904, as the Epigraphia Indica editors quote him, that it was certainly complete by the 9th century and very probably in the 6th or 8th.1 Ram Karna, who edited the stone, holds that the stone's quotation puts it before the 7th century and that it belongs to the Purana.1 The critical sources used here name no author for the Devi Mahatmya either.
How it was found
The slab was found in a very old temple of the goddess. The temple stands in a desert where the lands of two villages, Goth and Manglod, meet, 24 miles north-east of the town of Nagor in Jodhpur State. The slab lay upside down in a corner of the temple hall. The edition gives no year for the find and no finder, and it lists two earlier publications.1
The stone was taken to the state's Historical Department, where Ram Karna first deciphered it. Some years later the Dahima brahman community asked for it back. In the 1911 to 1912 edition it lay in its old place in the temple hall. The contents had also been copied onto a copper plate fixed at the entrance.1 No later report of its location was found.
What it shows, and what it does not
It shows that a community in Marwar carved a verse of prayer to the goddess on this slab, in the year the editor reads as 608 CE. Ram Karna identifies the verse as one from the Devi Mahatmya. On that identification the Devi Mahatmya existed by then, which fits the ranges Hiltebeitel and the Cambridge cataloguers give. The slab also shows that the goddess Dadhimati was worshipped at the site. Ram Karna reasons that the temple already stood and that the Dadhya brahmans named are the Dahima brahmans of his own day, who honor her as their family goddess.126
It does not show that the whole Devi Mahatmya, with its 13 chapters, existed then. The slab holds one verse, and the passages read do not say that the stone names its source. Ram Karna argues that the verse fixes the Mahatmya before the 7th century and that it is not a later addition to the Purana. His edition also notes that some scholars regard it as one.1 The stone gives no date for the rest of the Markandeya Purana, and its own era rests on Ram Karna's comparison of numerals and letters.1
Read next
Sources
- Ram Karna (with notes by the editors of Epigraphia Indica). Dadhimati-Mata Inscription of the Time of Dhruhlana; [Gupta-]Samvat 289 (No. 31). Epigraphia Indica, vol. 11 (1911 to 1912), Archaeological Survey of India; text via jainqq.org, 1911, printed pp. 299 to 303 (scan pages 350 to 354). Accessed 2026-11-06.
- Alf Hiltebeitel. Hinduism. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
- E. H. Rick Jarow. Puranas. Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-29.
- Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. About Us. Belur Math (Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission). Accessed 2026-10-29.
- Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math. Durga Puja at Belur Math. Belur Math (Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission), the section on Mother worship in India. Accessed 2026-11-06.
- Daniele Cuneo and Camillo Formigatti (authors of the record). Devimahatmya, Cambridge University Library MS Add.1556 (catalog record). Cambridge Digital Library, Cambridge University Library, abstract and incipit fields. Accessed 2026-11-06.
- Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Dancing with Siva, Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism, sixth edition, "What Are Hinduism's Principal Sects?". Himalayan Academy, 2003, chapter 1, sloka 6. Accessed 2026-10-28.