North Indian Inscriptions

PART A

A 43 (806); PLATE XXIV

FRAGMENTARY inscription on a pillar, now at Batanmāra. Edited by Cunningham, StBh. (1879), p. 138, No. 93, and Pl. LV; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 16, No. 43.

TEXT:
Pusadataye Nagarikaya bhichhuniye^[1]

TRANSLATION:
(The gift) of the nun Pusadatā (Pushyadattā),^[2] the Nagarikā (inhabitant of Nagara)-

As regards the restoration suggested by Barua-Sinha, see the note on No. A 124.

A 44 (806 a)^[3]; PLATE XXVIII

INCISED near the representation of an acrobatic scene on a fragment of a pillar from Nagaudh State in Central India, now belonging to the Allahabad Municipal Museum (Ac/2915). Edited by Dines Chandra Sircar, FRASB., Letters Vol. XIV, 1948, p. 113 f; EI., Vol. XXXIII (1959/60), pp. 57 f.; Kala, BhV. (1951), p. 30, and Pl. 1; an illustration of the fragment of the pillar is also given by Stella Kramrisch, The Art India through the Ages (1954), Pl. 17.

TEXT:
Pusadataye Nagarikaye bhikhuniye^[4]

TRANSLATION:
(The gift) of the nun Pusadatā (Pushyadattā),^[2] the Nāgarikā (inhabitant of Nagara).

  This inscription first published by Mr. Sircar in 1948 is very similar to A 43. The differences are that in A 43 we read Nagarikaya bhichhuniye whereas the present inscription, according to Mr. Sircar, has Nāgarikāye bhikhaniye.^[5] Mr. Sircar first read a doubtful sa at the end of the inscription, perhaps because he accepted the combination of A 43 and A 124, following a suggestion made by Barua-Sinha but rejected by Lüders under A 124. In his second article Dr. Sircar came to the conclusion that the epigraph ends with the word bhikhuniye and translated the record: “(The gift) of Pushyadatta, the nun of the city.”

A 45 (852); PLATE VII

ON a rail-bar, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (C.B. 48). Edited by Cunningham, StBh. (1879), p. 141, No. 37, and Pl. LVI; Hultzsch, ɀDMG., Vol. XL (1886), p. 74, No. 132, and Pl., and IA., Vol. XXI (1892), p. 237, No. 132; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 24, No. 87.
_________________________

^[1] From Cunningham’s eye-copy. His transcript has Nagarikaye. Supply dānaṁ at the end.
^[2] See classification I, 2, A, b (names derived from constellations).
^[3] Lüders, of course, had no knowledge of this new discovery. A 43 and A 44, both mentioning the place name Nagara, were for a time-a rubbing not being available-considered to be identical, others wise they would have been inserted after A 12.
^[4] As read by Mr. Sircar in his second article. Possibly the inscription has Nagarikaya as in A 48.
^[5] Note, however, that in our inscriptions the genitive sg.-ye is found elsewhere with the base bhichhunī and not with bhikhunī, see § 29 (III).