Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
thoughts and sayings found in Thomas à Kempis were current among the old Indian Christians.
Of much greater importance, in my mind, are the coincidences with later Christian theological doctrines-as, for example, the doctrine of the lumen gloriae (xi. él. 8*), the credo at intelligam (iv. él. 39+); and with Christian formulas, as, for example, the well-known division of moral acts into thoughts, words, and deeds, and of good works, into prayer, fasting,
NOTES ON INSCRIPTIONS AT GADDAK, IN THE DAMBAL TALUKA OF THE
DHARWAD DISTRICT.
[OCTOBER, 1873.
and almsgiving (xvii. śl. 28). Yet here it must be observed that all these expressions and ideas§ existed in Christianity long before they can be pointed out in Christian writers, although I do not think it impossible that in case Sankara's date, which future investigations may perhaps give us, be later than the 8th century, the date of the Bhagavad-Gita also may be later than we are warranted by the data we have at present in putting it.
BY J. F. FLEET, Bo. C.S.
Situated in the neighbourhood of Da mbal and Lakkundi, a part of the Dharwad District that contains many most interesting relics of former times, Gadda k itself possesses in its inscriptions antiquities that will well repay an investigation of them.
There are two large and somewhat famous temples in the town; one of N ârâ yanadêva in the modern bazaar, and one of Trikitêsvaradeva in the old fort. The former is not remarkable from an architectural point of view, and probably is not of any great age: the chief object of interest about it is a large gateway in the eastern wall of the courtyard, into the construction of which some curious carvings, evidently the remains of some former building, have been built. The temple of Trikûtêsvaradeva, however, is manifestly of considerable antiquity, and, though it is now alinga or Śaiva shrine, the style of its architecture proves it to have been, as is the case with most of the old linga temples of these parts, originally a Jain temple. Tradition ascribes the construction of it, as of nearly all the temples in this part of the country, to the half-mythical architect Jak kanacharya.¶
Compare with the words,-' yet with this eye of thine thou art not able to see me a divine eye give I thee',the doctrine of the theologians of the lumen gloria, by which the blessed in heaven are enabled to see God. 8. Thomas Aquin. Summ. Theol. 1. q. 12, art. 2: "Dicendum, quod ad videndum Dei essentiam requiritur aliqua similitudo ex parte visive potentiae, scilicet lumen divinse gloria confrontans intellectum ad videndum Deam, de quo dicitur in Psal. xxv.: in lumine tuo videbimus lumen." Conf. also Rev. xxi. 23.
+ Thomson explains-Faith is the absence of all doubt and scepticism, confidence in the revelation of religion, ready and willing performance of its precepts.'-I hold the idea of faith (raddhi) in this sense just as that of bhakti (iii. 31 and iv. 10; and see Lassen, Ind. Alt. II. 1099; Weber, Ind. Stud. II. 898 fl.) as a representatation adopted from
The two temples mentioned above contain between them eleven old Sanskrit and Canarese inscriptions, all more or less of interest. My stay at Gaddak was not sufficiently long to enable me to copy more than one of them, but a brief notice of the rest and of the contents of each, so far as I had leisure to make them out, may prove of use to others who may visit the place.
Two of the inscriptions are in the courtyard of the temple of Narayanadeva. No. 1 leans up against the western wall. It consists of seventy-two or seventy-three lines, each line containing about sixty-three letters. The characters, which are Old Canarese, are somewhat small. The surface of the stone has been so much. worn away that the inscription 'can hardly be traced at all in some places, and it would require much time and patience to decipher any portion of it. The emblems over it represent Virabhadra, Narayana, Ganapati, Sarasvati, a cow and calf, and the Sun and Moon. It is probably about four hundred years old. No. 2, which also is in the Old Canarese characters, stands up against the eastern wall of the courtyard. It consists of sixty-nine lines, each line
Christianity, and doubt if fraddha is used in this sense in the earlier Indian works in which a Christian influence cannot yet be pointed out.-The sentence expressed here: Braddha vallabhate jnanam (Schlegel: qui fidem habet, adipiscitur scientiam) is nothing else than the well-known Credo, ut intelligam, a fundamental formula which can only have arisen upon Christian ground, and which, where it again recurs in the original works of Indian Brahmanism, plainly bears its Christian origin on its forehead.
The words, It arails not after death nor here,' forci bly remind us of the Christian doctrine of the dead meritless works which are performed without the habitus cari.
tatis.
The juxtaposition of prayer, almagiving, and fasting, occurs in the book of Tobit, xii. 8: "Prayer is good with fasting and alms and righteoumons." Bee vol. I. p. 44.