North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

a relief which illustrates an event on Mount Naḍoda. The only word in the inscription which presents any difficulty is katha, which may denote either the object which is milked or the substance which is milked from it. Hultzsch states that Bühler wanted to explain it as kvātha ‘ decoction ’. According to Pāniṇi 3, 1, 140, besides kvātha there existed in the same meaning also kvatha, and we may agree that katha may stand for kvathaṁ and, if necessary, also for kvāthaṁ. But the sense so obtained is hardly satisfactory. Hultzsch proposed to take katha as a graphical or dialectal variant of kaṭha (kāshṭha) ‘ wood ’. I am ready to admit that owing to the negligence of a mason, who forgot to put the dot in the centre of the letter, a tha may occasionally appear as ṭha, but the superfluous addition of a dot in writing katha for kaṭha, as Hultzsch’s suggestion implies, is highly improbable, and the derivation of katha (with dental th=kattha) from kāshṭha is phonetically impossible. Moreover the milking of a piece of wood would not agree with the sculpture. There can be little doubt that the thing (katha) which Veḍuka is milking is an object hanging down from the tree which is certainly neither a piece of wood nor a bhisti’s mashak as suggested by Hoernle. What it is meant for will be understood at once, if we remember that the anusvāra is frequently not written in these inscriptions and that therefore katha may be an imperfect spelling for kaṁthaṁ. Kanthā is the garment of a religious mendicant together with hundreds of rags; cf. Bhartṛihari 3, 19 ; vastraṁ cha jīṇaśatakhaṇḍamayī cha kanthā ; 3, 74 jīrṇā kanthā tataḥ kīm ; 3.86 rathyākshīṇaviśīrṇajīṇavasanaiḥ saṁprāptakanthāsakhaḥ ; 3, 101 kaupīnaṁ śatakhaṇḍajarjarataraṁ kanthā punas tādṛiśī; śāntiś. 4, 20 dhṛitajaratkanthālavasya. In Śāntiś. 4, 4 the garment of a forest recluse is said to be pieced up with withered leaves; jīrṇapalāśasaṁhatikṛitāṁ^[1] kanthām vasāno vane. Mahāv. 8, 12 we are told that Ānanda made garments from rags (chhinnaka) having the appearance of fields of rice in Magadha (Magadhakhetta) with their manifold boundaries. Exactly in the same way the artists has represented the kantha.

   The story of Veḍuka’s milking has not yet been identified. It belongs to the circle of legend gathered round Mount Naḍoda which form the subject also of the sculpture referred to under Nos. B 70, B 72, B 74, B 75, B 76, B 81.

B 74 (708); PLATES XXIII, XLVII

ON a coping-stone, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (A 56). Edited by Cunningham, StBh. (1879), p. 98; 131, No. 19, and Pl. XLVIII and LIII ; Hoernle, IA. Vol. X (1881), p. 121, No. 9; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 62, No 19, and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 228, No. 19; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 97, No. 222; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (934), p. 162 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. XCI (140); Lüders, Bharh. (1941), p. 82 ff.

TEXT:
jabū Naḍode pavate

TRANSLATION:
The rose-apple tree on Mount Naḍoda.

  On the left side of the sculpture there is a tree from which two human hands emerge, one holding a bowl filled with food, while the other is pouring out water from a vessel, resembling a tea-pot, upon the right hand of a man sitting on a mōṛhā, or wicker stool. We know from the medallion illustrating the gift of the Jetavana and other sculptures that vessels of that peculiar form (bhiṅkāra) were used in the ceremony of pouring the water of donation on the hand of the donee; the scene therefore evidently represents the gift of food to
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^[1]Variant reading : śirṇapalāśapattrarachitāṁ.