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

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OLD BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS
Kalinga are said to have brought about a great turning point in his life and career. It is evident from his two Separate Rock Edicts that he governed the province of Kalinga by his viceroy and high functionaries. It is certain that this province remained under his rule for at least twentynine years (261-232 B.C.). It is manifest from all his statements that he really found the conquest of Kalinga a hard nut to crack, and that, in spite of his most determined attacks, he failed to conquer and annex all the tracts covered by Kharavela's kingdom of Kalinga. He had to leave out certain parts demarcating them as unconquered outlying tracts (amtā avijita) and placing them in charge of his high functionaries known as Wardens of the Marches' (Amtapālā-mahāmātā). The digging of a canal near the Tosali road may be regarded as a possible work of his. And, lastly, there were two sets of inscriptions, one set incised on the Dhauli rock separated by an open plain from the hills of Udayagiri and Khandagiri and the other incised on the Jaugada rock within a few miles from Khāravela's capital to remind the inhabitants of Kalinga of the fact of its conquest by an outsider. The personal name of King Asoka having not been recorded in these inscriptions, it was not impossible for the local people to identify the author of the inscriptions and the excavator of the Tosali road canal with a Magadhan king Nanda whom the growing spurious Brahmanical traditions made them familiar with.
Two of the stories of hell in the Petavatthu which is one of the postAsokan Pali works included in the Buddhist Tipitaka alludes to the kingdom of a fabulously rich Nanda king abounding in the wealth of all kinds of apparels. 1 The commentary on the Petavatthu identifies Nandaraja of these stories with a pre-Buddhistic king of Kasi.2 The Jaina BhagavatiSūtra (XV. 1) speaks of a powerful King Jayasena Vimalavahana Mahapadma (Mahapauma) reigning in the city of Satadvara at the foot of the Vindhya mountain long long after the death of the Ajivika teacher Gosala who predeceased Mahavira by sixteen years. As a mighty persecutor of the Jains, this King Mahapadma is represented as an embodiment of the evil spirit of Gośāla. None need be surprised if this Jayasena
1. Petavatthu, II. 1, III. 2 :
Yavata Nandarājassa vijitasmim paṭicchada.
2. Paramattha-Dipani, the volume containing the Petavatthu-Commentary, p. 73. Somehow, it is to this King Nanda that the legend in Alberuni's Indika of the Nanda king, rich with buried treasures, may be traced.
3. None need be surprised if some such king was behind the story in the Sanskrit slokas from an Old Oriya MS. of a vedadharma-parāyaṇa Nanda rival of the Jain King AiraAhira of Utkala.