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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA NOTE ON THE BAJAUR INSCRIPTION OF MENANDROS after the casket had become damaged, due to the ruler who is called Vijayamitra in C and D, and it seems to me that we must identify this Vijayamitra with Viyakamitra. The epithet apracharaja has been read in the legend on the British Museum coin of Vijayamitra’s son,1 but is not known from other sources. The interchange of j and y does not present any difficulty, if we bear in mind doublets such as Aja and Aya for Azes. And the writing of k for y is known from other sourees2 and has its parallel in the frequent y for k. Viyakamitra can accordingly be the same name as Vijayamitra, in a different orthography. Palaeographically both B and C-D belong to about the first century B.C., and it is just possible that Vijayamitra, Vijakamitra is the same ruler whose coins have, according to Majumdar, been found at Sirkap during the Taxila excavations of 1931. The form Viyaka can hardly be Vīryaka, which would probably become Vīriaka, and certainly not Vijjaka. Vijayamitra certainly makes the impression of being an Indian name. But we cannot be certain. It may be of interest to bear in mind that the bottom-stroke of j which we find in apracharaja is absent in Vijayamitra, which can very well be an Iranian or semi-Iranian name ; cf. the element viśe, i.e., vize in the names of Khotanese kings. In such circumstances I think it possible that the draft of the inscription was revised by an officer of Vijayamitra’s who thought it advisable to make the date clearer by adding the ruler’s name and therefore entered B, in his own orthography, above the date portion of the inscription. It is impossible to be confident, but such seem to me to be the most likely explanation.
In other respects I can accept most of Majumdar’s interpretation of D. He had not noticed the fact that there is, especially in the first part of the inscription, a clear tendency to separate individual sentences and sometimes individual words by short intervals, which sometimes makes it necessary to deviate from his reading. Thus the beginning of the inscription goes on as follows :─ime sarira palugabhu[tr]ao na sakareat(r)itasaśariat(r)i kaladre. It is evident that we cannot here read sakare at(r)ita,but must take sakareat(r)i as one word and tasa as the next one Sakareat(r)i is satkriyatē, or rather satkāryatē ‘ is honoured, treated with respect.’ Paluga has rightly been identified by Majumdar with Pāli palugga ‘broken, decayed’, though we should expect pralugga. The first sentence accordingly runs : ‘This relic having been decayed is not properly respected’, and this is further explained in what follows, which shows that the respect shown to the relic consisted in pious acts performed at the site. The next clause is tasaśariat(r)i kaladre, where the sa of tasa cannot, as already stated, be separated from ta and consequently not be the subject of śariat(r)i ; i.e., as stated by Majumdar, Sanskrit śīryatē ‘ is broken falls of ’; and the subject must be kaladre, which cannot therefore correspond to Sanskrit kālataḥ, as Majumdar thinks. I am in doubt about the final syllable. If it is d(r)e we would have a kālade with a spirantic δ, which kaladre might be something like kāladraya which does not seem to give any sense. I am inclined to look on the apparent r stroke as a mistake of the engraver, because the e-mātrā was blurred. And I can only explain kalade as standing for kāladēya3 ‘ what should be given in its proper time, seasonal offerings,’ and what is meant we learn from what follows : na śadhro na piṁḍoya key(r)i pit(r)igriṇayat(r)i ‘ nobody causes the ancestors to receive śrāddha and piṇḍōdaka.’ Majumdar takes śadhro to stand for śrāddhaḥ, to which he assigns the elsewhere unknown meaning ‘venerated’, and explains piṁḍoyakey(r)i as piṇḍōdakaiḥ, but final o in this inscription usually stands for aṁ, and both the form and the construction make it impossible to think of an instrumental plural. The reference to such periodical offerings has no special connection with Buddhism but tends to show that the relic-sanctuary was held in honour by people of all creeds. ___________________________
[1] Cunningham, Numismatic Chronicle, 1890, pp. 127, 170 ; Rapson, Indian Coins, p. 9 ; Whitehead, Catalogue | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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