South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

of the inscription says that a person named Mūlajapa presented three images for worship to (or installed them in) a particular religious establishment. The name of the establishment is not specifically mentioned in the inscription apparently because the inscribed stone was in view in the temple which housed the images. The temple was probably situated in the modern Bhadrak area which is the findspot of our inscription. Unfortunately the deity or deities represented by the images have not been named and cannot therefore be determined. We know that there was a practice according to which the installation of one or more images of one or more deities would be promised by a person in distress with the hope that he would be relieved of the suffering. Numerous such images, styled dēya-dharma or dēva-dharma in the records on later specimens, have been discovered. In the terminology of similar dedicatory inscriptions, the three images referred to in our record were the dēya-dharma or dēva-dharma of Mūlajapa who installed them in a temple in the vicinity of Bhadrak within the dominions of Mahārāja śrī-Gaṇa in the eighth year of the latter’s reign.

In regard to the reading of the second half of line 1, we have to admit that, since this part follows the regnal year, it is tempting to take pa (read pē) before the traces of a damaged sign (tentatively read na) as a contraction of pakshē and dava (read dēvā) before 3 as meant for divasē. In that case, however, we should expect immediately before pa the name of one of the seasons (viz. grīshma, varshā and hēmanta) or less probably that of a month. But the reading mūla is fairly certain, although the sign read as ja may possibly also be 3. Unfortunately it is difficult to make out here the name of a season or month inspite of the fact that one of the twenty seven nakshatras bears the name Mūla. The name Jyēshṭhamūla is sometimes applied to Jyēshṭha ; but mūla is never used as the name of a month.

Line 2 of the inscription begins with vapa 80. Before this, there are traces of a letter partially broken away along with a piece of stone. Judging from the beginning of the first line of the record, marked by the traces of the siddham symbol, it is apparent that one or two letters have been completely broken away at the beginning of the second line. A word ending in vapa and followed by a number would suggest an expression like kulyavāpa, khārīvāpa, drōṇavāpa, āḍhavāpa or nālikāvāpa all of which were the names of some of the different land-measures of ancient India. Thus the section no doubt refers to eighty measures of land which was apparently granted by Mūlajapa in favour of the temple for the continuation of the worship of the three deities installed by him therein. The partially broken letter before vapa cannot be satisfactorily read ; but it may be a damaged ḍha.^[1] In that case the reading intended may be āḍhavāpa.

The rest of the second line of the inscription reads : Mah[ā]kulapati-ayya-Agisamēna Pānidē vaḍidaṁ paḍichhidaṁ. Paḍichhida is the same as Pali paṭichchhita meaning ‘accepted,’ while vaḍida seems to be the same as Sanskrit vaṭita meaning ‘an apportionment’, i.e., an apportioned piece of land in the present case. The sentence thus indicates that the eighty measures of land referred to were apportioned in a locality called Pānida and that the land was accepted by Mahākulapati-ārya Agniśarman apparently on behalf of the temple or religious establishment in question. Agniśarman was probably the head of the establishment or less probably the priest in charge of the temple. The epithets ārya, ‘venerable’, and Mahākulapati point to his high rank. The expression kulapati, which usually means the head or chief of a family, also indicated a sage who feeds and teachers ten thousand pupils.^[2]

The letters if the first half of line 3 are either completely or partially broken away. The first five or six aksharas are lost, while only the vowel-marks of the following two aksharas (medial i

_________________________________________________

[It looks more like ha.─B.C.C.]
See Apte Sanskrit-English Dictionary, s.v.