South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

TRANSLATION.

“ This cave, a pious gift of Mugûdâsa, a fisherman, together with his next.”

It is, I think, too precise to translate saparivâra by ‘ with his family.’ If such were his intention, the engraver would rather have used either special names of kinship or some generic word, as jâti, would occurs elsewhere. Parivâra may, together with the family or even excluding it, apply to companions of the donor, fellow-workers or caste-partners.

Whatever may be the exact meaning of dâsaka, which I do not hesitate to identify with dâśaka, as suggested by Bühler, our Mugûdâsa cannot well be different from the one who is mentioned in the next inscription, also with his surroundings (saparivâra). It is strange that the gift of the cave should thus be commemorated twice in two epigraphs, each of which is located on one side of the same door. Generally our formulas distinguish the leṇa from the cells (ovaraka, gabha) which are excavated in them. Although leṇa is here used in both cases, I am inclined to think that the word in our No. 9 points no more to the veranda, but to the cell which the same donor Mugûdâsa must have added to his cave. This interpretation seems the more tempting as the second donation has for its object to supply with clothes the pavajita, i.e. the monk residing in the cell. However this may be, Mugûdâsa has a namesake at Kuḍâ (AS. No. 23), a mâlâkâra or florist, whom nothing at least in the writing forbids to consider his contemporary.

No. 9, Plate iii. (N. 6.)

On the back wall of the veranda in Cave No. 8, left of the doorway.

TEXT.

1 Chetika-upâsakiyasa Mugûdâsasa (1) saparivârasa leṇaṁ (2) deyadhama (3) etasa leṇasa (4) Bodhiguta-
2 upâsakasa putena Dhamanaṁdinâ dataṁ (5) khetaṁ (6) aparilîya Kaṇhahiniya eto cha khetâto chîvarikaṁ (7) pavaïtasa.

REMARKS.

(1) AS. Mûgûº.─ (2) G. and AS. leṇa.─ (3) Perhaps ºdhamo ; but the vowel-mark would then, contrary to use, be attached to the top of the m.─ (4) AS. lenasa.─ (5) G. and AS. data. ─ (6) G. and AS. kheta. ─ (7) G. and AS. chivarika.

TRANSLATION.

“ This cave, a pious gift of Mugûdâsa, of the lay community of Chetikas, together with his next. To this cave has been given by Dhamanandin, son of the lay worshipper Bodhiguta, a field in Western Kaṇhahini, and from this field (accrues) the providing of clothes for the ascetic (living here).”

Compare the preceding inscription. The only difficulty peculiar to this epigraph is connected with the words aparilîya Kaṇhahiniya. I have followed the translation of Bühler and Bhagwanlal, but without feeling so certain about its correctness as they appear to do. It presupposes an adjective aparila, equivalent to âpara, which is unusual, and which in any case does not conform to the precedent Apara-Kakhaḍiye in No. 4 above. The analogy of that passage would rather induce us to look in the word following khetaṁ for the particular name of the field. Anyhow the long vowel of lî, which is quite distinct, remains somewhat puzzling ; it would make me think of some passive participle of the future a-parilîya, if the use of lî with the prefix pari were testified to by literature or gave some clear and satisfactory meaning.