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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA origin as we have the name Dommana (no doubt a variant of Ḍōmmaṇa) only in the south ; cf. the Māṅgallu grant[1] of the Eastern Chālukya king Amma II (circa 945-70 A.C.) and the Dibbida plates[2] (Śaka 1191) of the Matsya chief Arjuna. As regards the South Indian association of the Bengal Vaidyas, among whom the southern name Ḍōmana=Ḍamana is found to have been popular even during the medieval period, I have elsewhere[3] observed, “ The present day Ambashṭhas of the Tamil land and Malabar (their early distribution in South India may have been wider) appear to be referred to as Vaidyas in inscriptions dating from the seventh century.[4] Their entry into Bengal during the rule of the Sēnas, hailing from Karṇāṭa or the Kanarese country of the Deccan, is very probable, as the Sēnas of Bengal must have patronized South Indians in the same way as the Muslim rulers of India entertained Musalmans of other countries at their courts. It is thus very probable that the crystallization of the professional community of the Vaidyas or physicians of Bengal into a caste was a result of their amalgamation with the tribal Ambashṭha-Vaidyas of Southern India. This seems to have been the background on which the theory identifying the Vaidyas with the Ambashṭhas of early Indian literature (Manu calling them physicians) was fabricated in the late medieval period ”.[5] It may be added that the Sēnas themselves came to be regarded as Vaidyas in the Vaidya kula-pañjikās.[6] Since Ḍōmmaṇapāla bore a South Indian name, was a subordinate apparently of the South Indian Sēnas and used the Śaka era which was popular in the south and seems to have been popularised in Bengal by the Sēnas, I suggested that his family may have originally belonged to South India ; but this has been regarded by Mr. Ghoshal as “ the absurdity of Dr. Sircar’s persistent and curious Southern complexes”.
King Ḍōmmaṇapāla made the grant in question when he was svīya-mukti-bhūmau Dvārahaṭākē, i.e., at Dvārahaṭāka which was his mukti-bhūmi.[7] Mr. Ghoshal interprets the expression mukti-bhūmi as ‘ the place of initiation ’, without any regard to Sanskrit lexicons, and says, “ Dr. D. C. Sircar asked if this term indicated Maḍōmmaṇapāla’s imminent death !” His use of the note of exclamation clearly indicates that he has discovered here another of my ‘absurdities’. But mukti-bhūmi is apparently the same as the well-known mukti-kshētra which is often used as an epithet of holy places and means ‘ a place where salvation is attainable on death ’. That the Indian kings regarded death at a tīrtha as especially meritorious is definitely known from numerous sources including Varāhamihira’s Bṛihatsaṁhitā, ch. 68, verse 19 : bhuktvā samyag=vasudhāṁ śauryēṇ=ōpajitām=aśīty-abdaḥ | tīrthē prāṇāṁs=tyaktvā bhadrō dēv-ālayaṁ yāti || ________________________________________________
[1] An. Rep. S. Ind. Ep., 1917, part II, para. 24.
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