South Indian Inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE MINISTERS AND FEUDATORIES OF THE
VATSAGULMA BRANCH

according to him, mentioned the ruling king’s minister Achitya who donated the vihāra. Dr. Bühler referred the inscription to the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century A.C.

...The record was finally edited by me from an excellent inked estampages supplied by the Government Epigraphist for India. It was published with a translation and a mechanical facsimile in the Hyderabad Archaeological Series, No. 15. It is edited here from the same facsimile.

... The inscription is engraved on a side wall outside the verandah in Cave XVII at Ajaṇṭā in the former Hyderabad State. It has suffered much by exposure to weather. Several aksharas in the beginning of each line on the left have been completely destroyed by rainwater trickling over them. Besides, a few aksharas here and there have become illegible. The general purport of the inscription can, however, be made out without much difficulty.

...The inscription covers a space 4’ broad and 4’ 5” high. The characters are of the boxheaded variety of the southern alphabets. The following peculiarities may be noted :− The length of the medical ī is shown by a curling curve which is generally turned to the left as in marīchi- line 20 and nyavīviśat, line 26, but in some cases the curve is turned to the right as in pradīpta-, line 6 and vyavīvṛidhat, line 13; the medical au is bipartite as in kāntarūpau, line 8; k is cursive in prakām-, line 26 ; ch and v are in some cases indistinguishable ; see marīchi-, line 20 and ravir-, line 29 ; d in Bhikshudāsa line 5, and pradīpta-, line 6 is angular. The sign for the jihvāmūlīya occurs in lines 1, 4 and 6, and that for the upadhmānīya in lines 11 and 13. The language is Sanskrit and the whole record is metrically composed. There are twenty-nine verses in all, none of which is numbered. Each line of the inscription contains one complete verse. The completion of the first hemistich is in some cases marked by a horizontal stroke and that of a whole verse by two vertical strokes. As for orthography, we may note that the consonant following r is generally reduplicated ; see karnumaṇō, line 1 ; kīrtti-, line 5 etc. ; the visarga is correctly omitted in bhuva stūpa- in line 22 in accordance with a vārttika on Pāṇini VIII, 3, 36, but the final n is wrongly changed to anusvāra in anūchivāṁ, line 18.

... As shown below, the inscription was caused to be incised by a prince whose name is now unfortunately lost, but who was probably ruling over Khāndēsh as a feudatory of the Vākāṭaka Emperor Harishēṇa. The object of it is to record the excavation, by this prince¹, of the vihāra cave XVII and the gandhakuṭī Cave XIX² at Ajaṇṭā. The present inscription may therefore be referred to the end of fifth century A.C. It is of the same age as the inscription in Cave XVI, which also belongs to the reign of the same Vākāṭaka Emperor Harisheṇa.

... Owing to the destruction of a considerable portion on the left, the inscription does not admit of a detailed analysis. The gaps in the text are required to be filled in some places by conjecture. The record opens with an obeisance to the sage (Buddha), who is described as a thunderbolt to the tree of worldly existence. The poet then proceeds to give the following pedigree of the donor of the Vihāra Cave :-
______________________

¹ All previous editors of the present inscription, who were misled by the word sachiva occurring in line 13, thought that this cave also, like Cave XVI, was caused to be excavated by a minister. For the correct interpretation of the verse see below, p. 122.
² Bhagvanlal thought that the gandhakuṭī mentioned in v. 27 was the small Cave XVIII from which the image which was movable had been removed. See Inscriptions etc., p. 76, n. 2. The description, however, clearly refers to the Chaitya Cave XIX which is actually situated to the west of Cave XVII.