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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
Considering the length of the other lines, it is clear that two letters at the beginning of line 1
are lost, although traces of the second of these two are visible. These lost aksharas appear to have
been sidha or sidhaṁ (Sanskrit siddham), the maṅgala found at the commencement of numerous
early records. The above is followed by the words namo Bhagavato (Sanskrit namaḥ Bhagavate),
‘Obeisance to the Lord’. This king of adoration without mentioning the name of the deity in
question is known from other inscriptions.[1] The Ikshvāku inscription often begin with the
maṅgala : namo Bhagavato Budhasa, ‘Obeisance to the Lord Buddha’. But the word following the
word Bhagavato in the present record is not Badhasa and does not appear to be the name of a deity.
The first two letters of this expression, viz. gala, are engraved at the end of line 1 and the third
letter at the beginning of line 2 is broken away, while the last two letters are clearly yasa. In is not
possible to restore the word with any amount of certainty. But it is tempting to suggest Gala-
[ve*]yasa (Sanskrit Gālaveyasya), ‘of the Gālaveya’, Gālaveya possibly being the gotra or clan name
of the king mentioned further on. The following letters of line 2 are Airasa Mahārāyaº with a
partially damaged sa (completing the second of the two expressions) at the beginning of line 3. It
is clear from this passage that the king, whose name follows, enjoyed the royal title Mahārāja
and claimed to have belonged to the Aira family. Aira as a family name also occurs in the inscriptions of the Chedi-Mahāmeghavāhanas of Kaliṅga.[2] Some scholars think that the word stands for
Sanskrit Aila (i.e. descendant of Ilā) while others equate it with the second group of scholars,
Prakrit forms ariya>ayira>aïra, We are inclined to agree with the second group of scholars,
especially because the change of r to l does not appear to be a characteristic of the language of the
inscription under study. Moreover, the forms ayira and aira (for Sanskrit ārya), form which aira
seems to have been derived, are actually found in the Amarāvatī and Nāgārjunikoṇḍa inscriptions.[3]
The letters following the damaged sa in line 3 are : Hāriti [putasa si]r[i-Mā]. The name of
the king, who enjoyed the metronymic Hārītīputra, ‘born of a lady belonging to (i.e. whose father
belonged to)[4] the Hārīta gotra’, cannot be determined with certainty as the letter following Mā
at the beginning of line 4 is damaged, although the following three aksharas read sadasa. Traces
of the damaged letter in the facsimile published by Mr. Seshadri Sastri, however, appear to suggest
the reading na.[5] Now, it may be supposed that the letters dasa go with the following expression
and that sa preceding dasa represents the sixth case-ending added to the king’s name in two syllables. The name of the king in that case may be Māna, if our view regarding the reading of
the second letter is accepted. Since, however, dasa added to the following word scarcely gives
any sense, the suggestion does not seem to suit the context. The other possibility is that the king’s
name was written in four syllables beginning with mā and ending with sada. In that case, the name
of the king may be taken, at least tentatively, to be Mānasada; but whether sada representing
the second half of the name stands for Śāta cannot be determined. A ruler named Sivamaka Sada
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[1] See Arch. Surv. S. Ind., Vol. I, pp. 85, 105 (Nos. 48-49). The god referred to in line 1 of the inscription
under study seems to be the one mentioned by name in lines 5-6. Sometimes a god is mentioned by name in the
adoration at the beginning of the epigraph and later only by the epithet Bhagavat (cf. JBRS, Vol. XXXIX,
Parts 1-2, pp. 4-5).
[2] Select Inscriptions, pp. 206, 214. See above, Vol. XX, p. 80. For a king named Ārya-Viśākhamitra who
ruled over Magadha in the second century A.D., see above, Vol. XXXI, pp. 229 ff.
[3] See lüders’ List, Nos. 1276, 1280 ; above, Vol. XX, p. 26.
[4] In ancient India, marriage was often performed without gotr-āntara, i.e. the change of the wife’s paternal
gotra to that of her husband. See Proc. IHC, Annamalainagar, 1945, pp. 48 ff.
[5] It may be conjectured that the damaged letter is tu, so that the passage would read sirimātu Sadasa (Sanskrit
śrīmatah Śātasya),’ of the illustrious Śāta’. Cf. sirimāto for Sanskrit śrīmān in a Nanaghat record (Select inscriptions, p. 184). In the Prakrit epigraphs, however, the name of a king is generally preceded by the word siri in
compound. Moreover the damaged letter at the beginning of line 4 does not look like tu.
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