South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

original or in my impressions but as he wanted to read them. This is very clearly demonstrated by the fifteenth akshara of the second line of the record as found in his impression. The doctored impression shows this letter clearly as ṇya and that is how it was read by Dr. Bhattasali originally, although it has been read in his paper published in the Epigraphia Indica tentatively as dēva. This is no doubt because the doctoring was done when the author was eager to read the letter as ṇya ; but, when apparently it was later pointed out to him that ṇya is rather awkward in the context, he was compelled to change his reading to dēva in spite of the fact that the new reading is quite plainly against the evidence of his impression.

Let us analyse here the mistakes in Dr. Bhattasali’s transcript of the Baḍagaṅgā inscription one by one.

1. In line 1, what has been read as bhāgavata is clearly bhaṭṭāraka. Thus the king in question (i.e., Bhūtivarman of the Bhauma or Nāraka dynasty^[1] of Prāgjyotisha or Kāmarupa, i.e., modern Assam) is described here as a Paramabhaṭṭārāka which is an ordinary imperial title and not as a Paramabhāgavata which would have shown that the ruler was a devout worshipper of the Bhagavat, i.e., the god Vishṇu.

2. The ninth letter of line 2 is a clear na even in Dr. Bhattasali’s impression ; but he suggested the reading of the letter as nāṁ and read the entire passage as ºaśvamēdhayājināṁ śrī-Bhūtivarmmadēvapādānāṁ. It is now seen that the correct reading is ºaśvamēdhayājina[ḥ*] śrī-Bhūtivarmmasya, although ºvarmmasya is a mistake for ºvarmmaṇaḥ.

3. At the beginning of line 3, Dr. Bhattasali reads the year of the date as 200 30 4 which is followed in his transcript by the akshara mā taken by him to indicate the month of Māgha. As Mr. N. Lakshminarayan Rao, who examined my impressions, first pointed out to me, the correct reading of what Dr. Bhattasali has read as 200 30 4 mā is āyushkāmaṁ and there is no trace of the syllable saṁ at the end of the previous line. Thus the actual reading of the passage in question is no doubt ºpādānāṁ āyushkāmaṁ vishay-āmātyaº. The inscription therefore does not contain either any date in the Gupta era or the name of any vishaya. The expression āyushkāmaṁ simply refers to the fact that the vishay-āmātya (governor of a district) performed a meritorious work for the longevity of his master, king Bhūtivarman.

4. The name of the vishay-āmātya referred to above was read by Dr. Bhattasali as Āryyaguṇa or Ādyaguṇa. The first letter of the name is a and not ā, while the second is either va or da without any subscript. A comparison with y in ºyājina in line 2 and in vishayāº in line 3 shows beyond doubt that the second akshara of the name in question cannot be ryya. The reading of the name seems to me to be Avaguṇa. The sense of the name is rather derogatory ; but names with derogatory sense are not uncommon in India^[2]. Thus the Baḍagaṅgā inscription speaks of Paramadaivata Paramabhaṭṭāraka Mahārājādhirāja Bhūtivarman, a performer of the Aśvamēdha sacrifice, during whose reign a royal officer named Avaguṇa, who was the governor of a district of Bhūtivaman’s kingdom, made an āśrama at the findspot of the epigraph for the longevity of his master. The area governed by Avaguṇa seems to have comprised parts of the present Nowgong District of Assam and the adjoining area including the valleys of the rivers Hārkāṭhī and Dīghalpānī mentioned above. An interesting information supplied by the inscription is that the Nowgong-

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^[1] The recently discovered Dubi plates give Varman as another name of the family. ,br> ^[2] There is a popular notion in Eastern India to suggest derogatory names for the children especially of women who repeatedly give birth to dead boys and girls. Cf. Bengali and Oriya names like Ekkari (literally, purchased by, i.e., worthy of, one cowrie only), Arakshita (literally, helpless, i.e., wretched, or a beggar), Fakīr (mendicant), etc. The idea behind such naming is that the attention of the god of death may be diverted from a child bearing a derogatory name. Such children are often given away to somebody and then purchased by the parents at a nominal price. For the similar name Dukhu or Duḥkhī (i.e., miserable), cf. Modern Review, July 1954, p. 79.