South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

identifying that village or clan. Bhagwanlal and Bühler are certainly wrong in admitting after the initial râ or ri of l. 2, the loss of one character only. That ri (the foregoing si does not allow any other reading) was undoubtedly separated by two letters from the ya which formed the end of the word. This being admitted, and no real and significant traces of the letters being preserved, we are left to fill up the lacuna entirely by conjecture. The direction in which we have to look, however, is quite clear. It is sure that Bhaṭapâlikâ is the name of the donor. The reading of Bhagwanlal, who sought for it in the beginning of l. 3, cannot be accounted for. The qualifications which the donor receives are therefore distributed into two groups : the second relates to her husband and her son, and the first must concern her descent. As the first link mentions her father’s name the second cannot well have pointed to anything but a brother or grandfather. There is no room for ri [bhagini]ya ; I am therefore inclined to think that, when uninjured, the stone bore ri[nati]ya, from naptrî. If this Mahâhakusiri is really the same as the Kumâra Hakasiriat Nânâghât, two generations would not be too much to explain the difference in the forms of the letters which exists between our epigraph and the Nânâghât inscription. Of course local peculiarities may have played their part too.

In whichever way bhaṁḍâkârikayasa be taken, either as a proper name as Bühler has done, or as the name of a function with Bhagwanlal, a regular form can only be obtained by reading º kârikiyasa. Bhagwanlal escaped all difficulties by dividing the compound after ya and applying the epithet to the donor. But the word bhâriyâya which follows does not suit such an explanation. He is however certainly right in looking here for the name of some appointment, and I take bhaṁḍâkârikiya as a derivative of bhâṇḍâgârika, pointing to a charge in the king’s treasury.

Nishṭhâpeti evidently conveys, as in Pâli, the idea of finishing, bringing to perfection. It suits the fact that the inscription No. 20, which is engraved over the door and relates to its ornamentation, is cut in letters more archaic than this one. It is therefore certain that the cave had been begun and excavated to some extent before the present donor put the last hand to it.

No. 20, Plate vi. (Ksh. 2).

Under the arch over the doorway of Cave No. 18.

TEXT.

Nâsikakanaṁ Dhaṁbhikagâmasa dânaṁ.

TRANSLATION.

“ The gift of the village of Dhambhika of the Nâsik people.”

Bhagwanlal understood : “ gift of the village of Dhambhika by the inhabitants of Nâsik,” and wondered, quite naturally, how such a community could have made the gift. Nothing of the kind is meant. It is clear that the gift consists of the ornated arcade which rises above the door, and at the base of which the inscription is engraved. This can be seen even from the care with which the architectural line is adhered to. I cannot make out how Bühler understood the inscription. His rendering : “ the gift of Dhambhikagâma, of the inhabitants of Nâsika,” seems somewhat ambiguous. I do not think however that any doubt can really be entertained. We have met with more than one instance of a genitive joined to the name of a donor, to indicate the community, district or clan to which he happened to belong. I suppose the case is the same here, and the Dhambhika village, which had contrived at the common expense (nothing is more frequent than the paying of such religious expenses from the resources of the community) to decorate the entrance to the cave, must have belonged to the general population or to the township of Nâsik.