South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

NANDSA YUPA INSCRIPTIONS

more potent than the Rājasūya or the Vājapēya.^[1] It is but natural that king [Śrī ?]sōma should have shown unstinted liberality on the occasion.

Grammatically, the clauses in ll. 2-8 are defective as no subject whatever is supplied to the verbal forms occurring in them. After a series of absolute clauses, we expect the main clause, but it does not make its appearance. In its stead we have a series of compounds ending in the genitive case in ll. 8-16, which further describe the achievements and lineage of the royal patron.

The first of these epithets, Brahm-ēndra-…niravakāśasya, ll. 8-9, describes how the king who gave no room (avakāśa) to sin, bad allotted space (kṛit-āvakāśasya) at places sacred to Brahmā, Indra, Prajāpati, Vishṇu and Maharshis. There is a pun o on the word avakāśa, but there is some uncertainty about the meaning of kṛit-āvakāśasya ; it seems that the royal patron had allotted extensive sites (avakāśa) or landed properties or both to the temples of the above deities. Whether Brahmā was at this time regarded as a god separate from Prajāpati, or whether the two expressions have been used by oversight, cannot be definitely stated. Temples of Maharshis or great sages are not known in modern times ; but it appears from our record that in the 3rd century A. D. there used to be shrines dedicated to sages like Agasti, Vālmīki and Vasishṭha.

The next epithet sita-sabhā…niśchayasya, in ll. 9-12, describes how king [Śrī ?]sōma had resolved to follow unswervingly the path chalked out by ancient royal sages by building magnificent (sita, literally, white) halls, rest-houses and temples, by digging wells and tanks, by following injunctions about sacrifices, charity and truth and by properly protecting his subjects. The succeeding clause, sva-guṇ-ātiśaya….m=anubhavataḥ, ll. 12-4, states that the numerous qualities of king [Śrī ?]sōma were as high and genuine as those of Manu. The next clause Ikshvāku….vaṁśē….sōmasya, (ll. 14-6), discussed already, (p.257), describes the family and genealogy of the donor. The next four letters, which occur only in inscription B, cannot be confidently read and interpreted. The first of these is seriously damaged, but may have been a na, the second is certainly a ka, the third may be a damaged śa and the fourth is a ta. The reading -sy=ānēka-śata-gō-sahasradakshiṇā gives an excellent meaning. The king claims to have given several lakhs of cows in charity. There is nothing improbable in this. Ushavadāta had given three lakhs of them. It is true that we expect śata to go along with sahasra, and not to be separated from it by the word gō. Transposition of adjectives in compounds is, however, sometimes done in this record ; immediately in the next sentence we have vṛisha-pramatta- instead of pramatta-vṛisha-. The same may have been the case here.

The last sentence, vṛisha….yūpa-pra, ll. 16-18 is both incomplete and considerably damaged It is possible that it could have contained many words more after pra, if we merely take into consideration the remaining space of l. 6 of inscription A. Such, however, was probably not the case, this line being shorter than the earlier ones. The stone yūpa on which the records are inscribed is even to-day standing in the bed of a tank at Nāndsā. I therefore think that the clause very probably ended with yūpa-pra[tishṭhā kṛitā]. There may have been some more adjectives, but it is doubtful whether any other sentence or clause followed this sentence. The word saṁkaṭa in the first compound of the sentence is to be taken in the sense of ‘ full ’ ; it states that the bank of the tank was full of wooden yūpas, against which bulls scratched their horns. This reminds us of Kālidāsa’s description of the Sarayū as a river, whose bank was full of yūpas.^[2] It appears that the custom was to perform the sacrifices on the banks of rivers or tanks or to transplant the yūpas in these places, after the sacrifices were over. The expression Pushkara-pratilambhabhūte states that the lake was a ‘ reproach to,’ i.e. a rival of, the famous Pushkara lake near Ajmer in sanctity.

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^[1] See S. B. E., Vol. XLIII, pp. 213-6 and the note on pp. 213-4.
^[2] Raghuvaṁsa, XIII, 61.