South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

certainly meant. It follows therefore that the translation put forward for vṛidhi paḍikaśata cannot be upheld.

The only safe way is to start from the locatives paḍike śate. In Kaṇheri No. 15, Bühler translated : ‘ two hundred bearing (a monthly interest of) one kârshâpaṇa.’ Hence he seems to have taken śate as a dual. Such an interpretation is out of the question ; it is discountenanced not only by the grammatical inadmissibility, but also by the repetition of the formula in our own text, where the numbers in each case are quite different. Nevertheless, I think that Bühler was perfectly right as to the general meaning. In fact, if we take, and we cannot well help doing so, śate as a locative, we are easily led by the two locatives to the translation : ‘ at one pratika per cent.’ In India the rate of interest is generally stated monthly (compare Manu, viii. v. 141, etc.). So it would imply a yearly income of 12 per cent. which, conformably to the ideas of the country, is far from excessive. We shall actually find in N. 17 a capital of 100 kârshâpaṇas bringing in annually the cost of a chivarika of 12 kârshápaṇas. At this rate of interest the two-thousand kârshâpaṇas bear exactly the two-hundred-and-forty kârshâpaṇas required yearly to provide the twenty monks with robes at 12 pieces each. It is true that the 75 pratikas produced on the same terms by the other investment of 1000 kârshâpaṇas are not quite sufficient to secure to the twenty monks as kuśaṇamûla one kârshâpaṇa monthly during four months, which would amount to eighty pieces. But this fact does not entail any real contradiction. If the kuśaṇamûla at Kaṇheri amounted to one pratika monthly, it does not follow that it must have been of exactly the same value at Nâsik ; nor is it sure even that the varsha, which we know to have differed in length according to time and place should have here lasted four months, rather than three. The only remaining difficulty is purely grammatical. I dare not decide if we ought to correct paḍika- (and pâyûnapaḍika-) śate, or to admit some irregular formation such as the familiar or technical language is apt to produce. Anyhow the meaning remains clear : ‘ interest at the rate of one (and three quarters of one) pratika monthly.’ The ye which follows the number 2000 of course refers to chivarikasahasrâṇi be ; it stands for the neuter yâni, exactly as in l. 2 the ye following châtudisasa. The sequel shows that we have to supply prayutâni or payutâni. As to âhâra = district, compare Dr. Fleet’s Gupta Inscr. p. 173, note.

I have explained before (N. 10) why I understand mûla not as = ‘ value, capital,’ but as meaning ‘ stem.’ The phraseology used here and the way in which the words are separated seem to supply another decisive argument in favour of that interpretation. In phalakavâra I prefer taking vâra, not, like Bühler, as = ‘ number, multitude,’ but as denoting the enclosure, the premises where the official documents are kept on boards (phalaka). There are no instances from literature, by which the real meaning can be tested. Anyhow archives seem to be understood. This inscription suggests a double formality : first the notification (śrâvita) of the gift, and secondly its registration (nibadha). As nigamasabhâ seems to mean ‘ the public hall, the town’s hall,’ it has been generally admitted that the first locative, nigamasabhâya, refers to the place where the proclamation had to be made, the second, phalakavâre, to the embodiment into the archives. But the sequel shows that phalakavâre charitrato forms a sentence complete in itself. On the other hand, I have repeatedly insisted upon the necessity of taking into consideration the law which in Sanskṛit puts the determinative term before the determined one. For this reason I have translated the sentence as above. The last words, phalakavâre, etc., are only a compendious attestation of the fact that the whole endowment was recorded in the archives conformably to rule.

The same formula is repeated at the end of the final clause which follows, and which is fraught with such difficulties that Bühler did not attempt even a conjectural translation. Bhagwanlal has been bolder ; I believe that, except in some grammatical details, he has on the whole been successful. We have before us a double date, 41 and 45, for the endowment.