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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA The title râjan added to the name Aśvaghôsha forbids us from identifying him with the eighth Buddhist patriarch and author of the Buddhacharita. It is true that in later India worldly titles are not uncommonly applied to spiritual worthies. Thus the term saṅgharâjâ is the modern title of the principal ecclesiastical functionary in Burma.[1] But it is doubtful whether that custom can be referred to the period to which our inscription belongs. Nor does it seem ever to have been the custom to date documents after the pontifical reign of the head of the church. It is more likely that the date refers to the era of Kanishka, and that the name of the local ruler of the time was added to the Genitive according to the established custom.[2] The characters well agree with this supposition. The angular ga and śa approach the forms of the Maurya Brâhmî. But on the whole the script resembles most closely that of the Kushaṇa period. Compare e.g. the akshara sya with that of the Kanishka inscription beneath. Some of the letters, like re, pa and sa, show a somewhat later type. Thus the epigraph may be assigned to the reign of Huvishka. The language, a mixture of Prâkṛit and Sanskṛit, points to the same conclusion.
Another inscription (i.f.) of a still later date is engraved to the proper left of the Aśôka inscription and above that of Aśvaghôsha’s reign. It consists of one line, 52 cm. long. The size of the letters varies from 1 to 5 cm. It is evidently not the work of a professional stone-cutter. Some of the characters are moreover injured, which makes their reading somewhat doubtful. My reading is as follows :─ Â[châ]ryyaṇaṁ Sa[mmi]tiyânaṁ parigraha Vâtsîputrikânâṁ. “ Homage of the masters of the Sammitiya (?) sect (and) of the Vâtsîputrika school.” On account of its characters, which resemble those of the early Gupta records, this epigraph may be attributed to the fourth century A.D. The language, it will be noticed, is more Sanskṛitic than that of the previous inscription. But the long â is not everywhere indicated (read : âchâryyâṇâm Sammitiyânâṁ). In parigraha the last syllable ought to be ho. Unfortunately the second syllable of the second word is uncertain. If the proposed reading be correct, it would afford an interesting proof of the correctness of a Tibetan tradition, according to which the Vâtsîputrîyas were a subdivision of the Sammitîya sect. As stated by Hiuen Tsiang, the large convent which once stood at Sârnâth accommodated fifteen hundred monks of this sect. Vatsîputra was one of the fathers of the Buddhist church, who, according to a Tibetan source, collected the words of the Lord two hundred years after his parinirvâṇa.[3] II.─ FRAGMENTARY INSCRIPTION OF ASVAGHOSHA’S REIGN. It is curious that the name of Râjan Aśvaghôsha occurs again on the fragment of a stone slab (height 16·5 cm.), which Mr. Oertel discovered, almost at the surface, some 70 feet to the north-east by east of the vihâra which formed the centre of his explorations. It contains the first portions of two lines of a well engraved inscription, which I read :
1 Râjño Aśvaghosha[sya] . . . . .
The characters are the same as those of Aśvaghôsha’s inscription on the Aśôka pillar.
[1] See Childers, Dictionary of the Pâli Language, s. v. saṅgho.
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