Bhagwan Lal Indraji or Bhagwanlal Indraji was an Indian archaeologist and scholar. A member of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Bombay branch, he made transcripts of several ancient Indian inscriptions, including the Hathigumpha inscription.
Bhagwan Lal Indraji or Bhagwanlal Indraji was an Indian archaeologist and scholar. A member of the Royal Asiatic Society’s Bombay branch, he made transcripts of several ancient Indian inscriptions, including the Hathigumpha inscription. He discovered many archaeological relics, including the Mathura lion capital, the Bairat and Sopara Ashokan inscription, the Nanaghat reliefs, the Mathura Vishnu image, drum miniature stupa with a frieze of eight metopes representing the four principal and four secondary scenes from Buddha’s life, Jain Aayagpata, various Mathura railing pillars, Mankuwar Buddha, Besnagar coping stone depicting Bodhi Tree, and Gadava surya frieze. He was the first Indian to receive an honorary doctorate from a foreign University (Leiden University). Indraji collected a numismatic collection of Parthian, Indo-Parthian, Kushan, Sasanian and Gupta coins.
Indraji was born in Junagadh, Gujarat and learned Sanskrit at an early age from his father, a Prashnora brahmin. The presence of numerous ancient inscriptions in and around Junagadh, including the Aśokan Major Rock Edict at Girnar, inspired him to study and translate those written in Brahmi – the ancestor of most modern scripts used in South Asia today. His translations improved upon and soon superseded earlier editions by those such as James Prinsep the British scholar, antiquary and scientist who lived and worked in India from 1819–1838. He mastered the Pali alphabet, including its several varieties from different periods.

Alexander Kinloch Forbes,a British Political Agent of Kathiawar, introduced Indraji to Bhau Daji Lad,a renowned Bombay-based scholar of India antiquities. Lad employed Indraji for more than a decade and this association was to prove transformative for Indraji’s scholarly endeavours: he now had the funds to travel widely, visiting archaeological sites and archives to read and document inscriptions in situ, while conducting excavations, and reading and translating manuscripts. Indraji also collected extensively.
It was during this time that Indraji unearthed the inscribed lion capital in Mathura, excavated the early Buddhist stupa at Sopara, and translated manuscripts of the Kama Sutra into Gujarati which formed the basis of later translations into English. Notably, Indraji’s papers were written in Gujarati, and his translations were also made into this language, which meant that his many and important contributions to Indology have been overlooked. Accompanied by his wife Gangaben, Bhagwan Lal visited (in that order) Khandwa, Omkareshwar, Indore, Ujjain, Bhojpur, Dhar, Mandu, Bhilsa (Besnagar), Sanchi, Eran, Udayagiri, Benares, Sarnath, Allahabad, Bhitari, Delhi, Kalsi, Mathura, Agra and Gwalior. Bhagwan Lal also visited Nepal, Indo-Tibet border, Baluchistan and the Yusufzai territory. He visited the Barabar and Nagarjunni Caves, Gaya, Bodh Gaya, Kashmir and Taxila
It was through the efforts of his Indian and European colleagues that many were later translated into English and his work received some recognition. During his travels across India, Indraji collected coins, manuscripts, sculptures, as well as copperplate and stone inscriptions. This wide range of objects and manuscripts contributed to his research into different aspects of ancient India, including the reconstruction of the lineages of some of the early rulers of Western India. In relation to coins in particular, Indraji was one of only a few Indian numismatic collectors and the only one to study them in such detail using scientific methodologies and skills.
His manuscript collection was presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bombay, his books were given to the Bombay Native General Library, and his coins and the Mathura Lion Capital were sent to the British Museum. The Prakrit inscriptions in Kharosthi script on the Mathura Lion Capital provide key information for understanding the links between Indo-Scythian families that ruled Taxila and Mathura in the first century. Similarly, the numerous Parthian, Indo-Parthian, Kushan, Sasanian and Gupta coins, among others, from Indraji’s numismatic collection help to shed further light on the history of north and northwestern South Asia.