North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

   DhA. (111, 31-34) a hunter, who has a pack of hounds with him, bears the name of Koka cannot possibly prove that the goddess Kokā¸ had anything to do with hunting. I have no doubt that Kokā is an abbreviated name and that Mahākokā and Chulakokā are identical with the goddesses (devatā) Kokanadā and Chulla-Kokanadā, the daughters of the rain-god Pajjunna, who in S. I, 29 ff. are said to have recited some Gāthās before the Buddha, when he was residing in the Kūṭāgārasālā at Vesālī.^[1] In the labels, the names are used in a shortened form as Bhīma for Bhīmasena. As Kokā is another name of Chakravāka both goddesses owe their names probably to their voice resembling that of a chakravāka.^[2]

B 12 (811); PLATES XVI, XXXII

   ON a pillar, now at Pataora.^[3] Edited by Cunningham, ^[StBh.] (1879), p. 22, Note 4; 139, No. 98, and Pl. LV; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 60; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 229, note 27; Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 73, No. 185; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 72; Lüders, Bhārh. (1941), p. 15 f.

TEXT:
Mahakoka devata^[4]

TRANSLATION:
The goddess Mahakoka (Great Kokā). With regard to the goddess see the remarks on No. B 11.

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^[1]This identification is also suggested by S. Paranavitana, Artibus Asiae, Vol. XVI (1953), p. 177, who translates Kokanadā and Chulla-Kodanadā as ‘Lily’ and ‘Little Lily’.
^[2]A female figure very similar to that of Chulakokā is represented on a pillar shown by Barua, Barh., III, Pl. LXV (76). She stands on a bridled horse winding her left hand and left leg round the stem of a tree while she grasps a branch hanging above her with her right hand. A label is missing. Barua l.c. II, p. 72, is of the opinion that we should be fully justified to take her as Majjhimakokā, the middle hunter-goddess, and to see in her the tutelary deity of the middle class of hunters ranging the forest on horse-back, whereas Chullakokā is the tutelary goddess of the special class of hunters ranging the wood on the back of elephants, and Mahākokā is a goddess of the general class of hunters. I am afraid such a peculiar addition to mythology will not find much approval.
^[3]Perhaps, as Barua, (Barh., II, p. 72) supposes, this is the pillar figured in Cunningham, StBh., Pl. XX, and Barh, Barh., Pl. XXIII (19), where a woman is represented grasping with her right hand the twig of an Aśoka tree in full bloom, but there is no inscription visible in the photograph. She resembles the figure designated as Chulakokā but the workmanship is much cruder than that of the latter.
^[4]From Cunningham’s eye-copy.