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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA line, consisting of two fragmentary and nine entire aksharas. Of the former we find the missing upper portions on another small fragment (i.c), which contains one entire akshara besides, and thus adds three to the nine aksharas mentioned. It will, moreover, be noticed that between the two lines of fragment i.d there runs a dark line, which indicates where the uppermost floor met the shaft and left its mark upon it. These can be no doubt as to the original position of these two fragments, which fit exactly to the lower part of the shaft preserved in situ. This is not the case with the third fragment (i.b), which has the first two syllables of three lines. But below its third line we find the same traces of the floor as are found on fragment i.d. This shows that in this third line we have the two initial syllables of the same line, the end of which is preserved on fragments i.c and i.d. Above the first line of i.a enough open space remains to make it unlikely that there was another line above it. We see, moreover, that the two syllables preserved read devâ, which, if continued –naṁ-piye Piyadasi lâjâ,[1] would form the well-known opening formula of several of the Aśôka edicts. We may, therefore assume that fragment i.b contains the beginning of the first three lines of the original epigraph. It follows from this that the uppermost line in situ is the fourth line of the whole inscription which, consequently, consisted of eleven lines. Their average length is 60 cm., but the last line measures only 21·5 cm. The size of the letters varies from 1·3 to 2·8 cm. They are cut very clearly, and are legible throughout except in portions of the third and fourth lines.
It is a question of primary importance whether we are justified in attributing the inscription to Aśôka. That the Dharmarâja would erect a memorial pillar on the spot where the Master preached his first sermon─ as, indeed, we know he did on the place of his birth and on that of his parinirvâṇa─ seems a priori most plausible. The fine monolith with its splendid capital and well-engraved inscription in the Maurya character would seem to point to no lesser founder than the great Buddhist emperor. But the epigraph itself affords a more positive proof. I need not quote as evidence my explanation of the first two aksharas of i.b, which, though plausible, is hypothetical itself. The same remark applies to a conjectural restoration of pâṭa in the third line of the same fragment to Pâṭalipute─ the only word of the Aśôka inscriptions beginning with those syllables.[2] The following two points seem to me to be decisive. In the sixth line we read : Hevaṁ-devânaṁ-piye-âhâ─ “ Thus speaks His sacred Majesty.” And in the eighth line mention is made of the Mahâmâtas, evidently no others than the Dhammamahâmâtas or ‘ superintendents of the sacred Law ’ whom, according to the fifth rock edict,[3] Aśôka had appointed thirteen years after his anointment. In the seventh pillar edict[4] it is, moreover, stated that these officials would be occupied with the affairs of the Saṅgha also, and it is clear that to these the Sârnâth inscription refers. We read in the fifth line : hevaṁ-iyaṁ-sâsane bhikhu-saṁghasi-cha bhikhuni-saṁghasi- cha viṁnapayitaviye─ “ Let thus this order be brought to notice in the congregation of the monks and in the congregation of the nuns.” And the monks themselves are evidently addressed in the following passage (l. 6 f.) : “ Not only has such an edict been laid down for you. But you must also lay down exactly such an edict for the lay-members.”
It would follow from the above that the Sârnâth pillar was erected after the institution of
the Mahâmâtas, i.e. not before the fourteenth year of Aśôka’s abhishêka (about B.C. 255). It
seems not unlikely that its erection took place on the occasion of Aśôka’s pilgrimage to the holy
places of Buddhism in 249 B.C.[5] It may at first seem surprising that the epigraph─ at least
[1] It is, of course, also possible that the Instrumental case used, as in the Rummindêî (or Paḍariyâ) and
Niglîva pillar inscriptions : Devânaṁ-piyena Piyadasina lâjina ; see above, Vol. V. p. 1 ff.
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