South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

AS. ekatise. The v is not doubtful ; the t and the v differ in the alphabet of this inscription in a quite district manner.─ (12) CTI. sahata. I cannot vouch for the e ; the third letter is not a very clear t, but can hardly be interpreted differently.─ (13) The reading proposed by AS., Mâtarakhiâ, cannot be upheld ; but after the group sya there is room for two characters, the first of which seems to have left remnants that might be interpreted easily as d.─ (14) The kâ is very indistinct.─ (15) CTI. and AS. dhama.─ (16) The character read ṭho remains doubtful ; if, as it would appear, the next following letter is really an initial a, there is hardly room for ṭh between this a and the preceding p, and we are obliged to suppose its being reduced to minute proportions. As to the letter n, I can say that it is visible in the estampage, especially on ther back of it, though not in th Plate.

TRANSLATION.

“Success ! On the second─ 2nd─ day of the third─ 3rd─ fortnight of winter in the twenty-fourth─ 24th─ yearof king Siri-Puḷumâvi, son of Vâsiṭhî, this pious gift of the lay-worshipper Harapharaṇa, son of Setapharaṇa, a Sovasaka, living in Abulâmâ, (viz.) a nine-celled hall, has been given to the universals Saṁgha, as special property of the Mahâsâṁghikas, in honour of his parents and for securing the welfare and happiness of all beings. In the twenty-first year it had been completed and . . . . . . . . . . to me by Budharakhita and his mother . . . . . , a lay-worshipper. The . . . . . a pious gift of Budharakhita’s mother.”

As regards the proper names, I have nothing to add to Bühler’s commentary. One can see from Fergusson and Burgess’s Rock-cut Temples, p. 241, that the excavation where this inscription was found is really a hall flanked by nine cells. I have said that I would rather read parigaho than parigahe. I am aware that an exactly similar passage which has to be compared with ours, in l. 12 of the inscription of Tôramâṇa at Kura (Ep. Ind. Vol. I. p. 240), to which I have alluded before (No. 13), seems to read certainly : ayaṁ puna vihârasyôpakaraṇa châturdiśê bhikshusaṁghê parigrahê âchârryamahîśâsakânâṁ. Whatever the true reading may be, only one interpretation of the general sense is to my opinion possible. That of Bühler is not acceptable. He took Parigraha to mean ‘circle, group,’ and took the adherents of the school of the Mahâsâṁghikas to be opposed to the châturdiśa bhikshusaṁgha, though in his commentary on the Kura inscription he recognised that parigraha can only mean ‘possession, property,’ and that the ‘universal Saṁgha’ can only be understood in antithesis to the special sect of the Mahâsâṁghikas. We have already seen that certain grants seem to stipulate that gifts attributed to particular sects should be meant for monks of every origin and of every denomination without distinction ; compare No. 13, l. 4. Whether we take, as basis, the nominative in translating “ has been given as property of the Mahâsâṁghikas,” both versions come to the same. We shall find a very similar sentence repeated twice in Nâsik No. 3. I shall there return to this subject, because the two groups of passages seem to explain each other.

With ekavise the obscurities begin. Bühler has clearly ‘thrown the haft after the blade ;’ still it is easier to condemn his evidently provisional attempt at interpretation than to replace it by a more probable one. I do not pretend to solve the difficulty, but would submit some observations with the desire that they may be of service to some more fortunate interpreter. The difficulty consists chiefly in two points : the word which I transcribe saheta, and the four last characters which are read pâṭho ano. As regards saha─ (the e, as I have said, is not sure),─ one feels tempted (considering that many other inscriptions at the end of a grant introduce the dependents of the chief donor as having joined him in the donation) to expect an enumeration of relatives taking part in the pious work of Harapharaṇa. But the characters which separate ha from Budharakhitena do not furnish the epithet of relationship which that hypothesis would require, and with the exception of the vowels the reading especially of the three last letters, seems quite