Old Bramhi Inscriptions In Udaygiri And Khandagiri

SR No.: 020516
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Benimadhab Barua
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1929
Total Pages: 354
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 279

NOTES
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was current at that time in Kalinga; (2) that the treasury of the government inherited by King Khāravela was full of ready money to enable him to spend 35,00,000 pieces, in the very first year of his reign, for repairing the capital city; and (3) that the annual income of His Majesty's government from the taxes and duties collected from his subjects in the kingdom of Kalinga, from the inhabitants of the towns and districts (pora-jānapada,),1 amounted to many hundred thousand pieces. Even leaving a good margin for hyperboles and exaggerations in the specified figures, one cannot but gather this impression from the Hāthi-Gumphā record, that Kbāravela was a fabulously rich king or that Kalinga was a prosperous kingdom under his rule.
Secondly, as to food-stuffs, we find that King Khāravela possessed vast stores to be in a position to sumptuously feast, in his ninth regnal year, all sections of the community—the religieux of Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical orders, the ascetics and householders, the officials and non-officials once in Mathurā and subsequently in Kalinga (I. 9); and to arrange for similar feasts on several other occasions, such as at the time when he was formally installed in the throne (I. 1), when he organized festiviti-s and merry gatherings (1. 1), when he performed all ceremonies of victory (I. 7), when he paid homage to the memory of his predecessors (I. 11), and, lastly, when he dedicated the caves and other religious edifices (I. 14, I. 15). King Asoka in his R. E. I, says that formerly many hundred thousands of living beings were daily slaughtered in his kitchen for dainty dishes, while subsequently the number was reduced to three, two peafowls and one deer. Although he has expressed in it a pious wish to stop even the daily slaugher of three living beings, there is nothing in his inscriptions to indicate that he was an advocate of vegetarian diet. What is clear from his edicts, especially R.E. I, is that he undervalued sacrificial slaughter of life, killin, living creatures in the name of religion. The Hāthi-Gumphā text is altogether silent on this point. If King Khāravela were a scrupulous Jain layman, it might have been expected from him! that he would strictly observe vegetarian practice.
1. Jayagwal has taken infinite pains to establish that in contexts, such as that of the Häthi-Gumphi inscription, where the terms pora and Janapada are used in singular num. ber, they are intended to denote two representative bodies of citizens and peoples. See, for a lengthy and detailed criticism of such an interpretation, N. N, Law's instructive paper-" The Janapada and the Paura," in the Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. II, Nos. 2.3.