South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

REMARKS.

(1) G. 6 ;AS. divase 8.─ (2) After saha I think I can discern some traces of the syllables bhagine.

TRANSLATION.

“ Success ! On the 6th (or 8th) day of the 4th fortnight of winter, in the year 2 of the king, the lord Siri-Pulumâi, son of Vâsiṭhî, on the above, the husbandman Dhaṇama has caused this to be made, together with his father and mother, with …”

Iṇa = idaṁ, as advocated by Bhagwanlal on the testimony of grammarians, is, as far as I remember, a lonely instance in the language of the caves. But the restoration leṇa seems to be out of the question.

No. 26, Plate viii. (N. 1).

On the ruined back wall of the veranda in Cave No. 24.

TEXT.

1 Sidhaṁ Śakasa Dâmachikasa (1) lekhakasa Vudhikasa 2 Vishṇudataputasa (2) Daśapuravâthavasa leṇa po- 3 ḍhiyo cha do (3) 2 ato ekâ poḍhi yâ aparadha sa (4) me mâtâ 4 . taro udisa.

REMARKS.

(1) G. Damaº.─ (2) G. º putrasa.─ (3) G. de.─ (4) G. apara esa ; AS. apara[dhâ] sa. The dh at least seems rather distinct.

TRANSLATION.

“ Success ! (The gift) of the Śaka Dâmachika Vudhika, a writer, son of Vishṇudata, an inhabitant of Daśapura, the cave and the two─ 2─ cisterns. Out of them the one cistern which has a small opening is on behalf of my father and mother.”

The bearing of Dâmachika, a clan district, is entirely unsettled. Bhagwanlal asks if that Śaka could not be a Greek from Damascus.This idea is more ingenious than probable. What seem likely is that Vudhika is the personal name of the donor. In spite of its correct look it does not, as a professional name, answer to any known handicraft. I do not think that the man’s name, supposing Dâmachika to express it, could have been separated by professional names from the epithets which relate to his descent : Vishṇudataputasa, etc. The reading aparadha or aparadhâ being most probable, Bhagwanlal’s tentative translation, based on another reading and by itself little satisfactory, must be given up. As to Bühler’s interpretation, who takes aparadhâ adverbially : ‘ on the west,’ such a way of distinguishing two small cisterns excavated near one another seems in itself very unlikely ; and to Bühler himself this use of aparadhâ appeared rather puzzling as he proposed the reading aparato. The idea which the final dhâ suggests is rather that of some adjective or participle connected with yâ. We obtain it by reading aparaṁdhâ (which is hardly a conjecture ; for the anusvâra may be actually expressed by one of the dots which appear above the head of the r) and explaining the word by alparandhrâ, ‘ with a small opening or cavity.’ Unfortunately the original state of things has been so altered that any actual verification of the fact is impossible, and we are unable to ascertain which of the two cisterns─ the one which bears a special epigraph (N. 27) or the other, which has none,─ was really characterised by more reduced dimensions.

No. 27, Plate vi. (N. 2).

On one of the two cisterns to the right of Cave No. 24.