Indian Antiquary Vol 47

SR No.: 032539
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 386
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 78

THE INDIAN ANTIQLARY
ARCH. 1918
of free ferries across and the erection of waiting places and prapás or gratuitous distribution of drinking water on the banks of the Ibå. Pârâda, Damana, Tapi, Karabeņå and Dahanuka.25
l'shavadata was no doubt a follower of the Brahmanical faith, but according to the catholie spirit of the age, he was by no means slow to extend his charities even to the Buddhist community. Thus his Karle inscription speaks of his granting the village of Karajika for the support of the monks residing during the rainy season in the caves of Valûraka, which was unquestionably the name of the old place within whose bounds the caves were situated.26 Nasik Cave No. 10, again, was caused by him to be cut in the Triraśmi hills in Govardhana. This cave, we are told. was spacious enough to accomodate twenty Buddhist monks during the rains. Like a true liberal donor Ushavadâta had made ample provision for their comfortable maintenance. Thus for supplying food to them, he purchased a field for 4,000 Kårshậpanas on the north-west side of Govardhana. He also made a perpetual endowment of 3,000 Kárshápanas, 2,000 of which were deposited in one weavers' guild and 1,000 in anotherboth of Govardhana, and at the rates of one and three-fourths per cent per mensem respectively. The first investment vielded a sum of 240 Kârshậpanas, of which a sum of 12 Kârshapanas was made over to every one of the twenty monks for his chivara or garnients. From the annual interest of 90 Kårshậpanas, accruing from the other deposit, each monk was granted a Kusana."
The Jummarcave inscription of the time of Nahapana records the gift of a cistern and a hall by Avama (Arvaman) of the Vatsa yotir, his minister (amáty). It is worthy of note that this epigraph specifies the date 46 and speaks of Nahapana as Mahâ-kshatrapa, whereas the Karle and Nasik records give the dates 41, 42 and 45 and call Nahapâna only a Kshatrapa.
Nahapâna struck both silver and copper coins. In point of weight. size and fabric, coins of the first class agree with the hemi-drachms of the Græco-Indian princes, Apollodotus and Menander, which, as the author of the Periplus tells us, were up to his time current in Barugaza (Broach)." Nahapana's silver coins were of extreme rarity until the discovery ten years ago, of a hoard of at least 14,000 coins at Jogaltemhhi in the Nâsik (listrict. From an examination of the busts on the four specimens of Nahapana's coins in his possession. Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji had inferred that they were struck at different ages of the king and that whereas the earliest had the face of a man 30 years old, the latest, of a man 70 years of age. But the Jogalembhi hoard conclusively proves that we have here faces varving not only in age but in every feature. The various types of the face which this hoard presents, viz, short-necked, straight-nosed, hook-nosed, low forehead and high forehead, lean face and fat face, cannot possibly represent one and the same individual even at different ages. The Rev. H. R. Scott, who has given a full account of this interesting and important find, solves the difficulty by saying that the heads represented are those of the members of Nahapâna's family, who "caused their own likenesses to be engraved on the coins whilst keeping the inscription of Nahapâna unchanged, as he was the founder of the family." This does not however, meet the case, and it seems that these faces are not likenesses at all, but merely copies of Roman coins-an inference strengthened by the figures on plates accompanying Mr. Scott's article," where the head-dress, the style of dressing the hair, the absence of moustache, and, above all, the shape of the head and features are very similar to the heads on coins of the Roman emperors of from 30 B.C. to A.D. 150":.
75 Bhagwânlal Indraji identifies Ibå with Ambika. Pårådå with Par, and Karabend with Kåveriall in South Gujaråt. Damana, of course, is the Damanagan gå river. and Dahanuka the Dahanú creek. # EI, VII, 57-8.
This seems to be the name for the silver coins struck by Nahapane. See further in the text. 21A, VIII. 19 JBBRAS., XXII. 223 and ff.
JRAS., 1890, 643. 31 JBBRIS. XXII. 236. Ibid, 237.
** JRAS., 1908, 551.