Indian Antiquary Vol 60

SR No.: 032552
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1986
Total Pages: 394
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 30

18
ATHE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JANUARY, 1931
Gauda') from king Ganda, the grandson of king Yasovarman (E.I., vol. I, p. 333). The title Vastavya' or 'Srivastavya,' according to European antiquarians, is derived from Sravasti. Takkârika is described in this inscription as the chief among the thirtysix villages which were rendered pure by the residence of people expert in the writers' profession (karana-karmma-nivasa-pita). The village resounded with recitations of Vedas This description reminds us of the description of Tarkkari given in the Silimpur inscription. The facts that this Kayastha family migrated from Takkariká, that their name, Våstayya,' is connected with Sråvasti, that the first village in Kalañjara they received as jágir was named Dugauda, or second Gauda,' probably in memory of their former residence in Gauda, and that king Yasovarman conquered Gauda, induce us to believe that this Vastavya-Kåyastha family had its original home in Sråvasti-Takkârika in Gauda of Bengal.' This also shows that not only the Gauda Brahmanas and Gauda Kayasthas but the Srivastavya Kayasthas, too, went to other places from Gauda in Bengal. It is not unlikely that king Yasovarman first took some of these Brahmanas and Kåyasthas from Gauda and employed them in bis court. Others may have followed in their train to seek their fortunes at this and other courts.
Thus we see that the traditions of the Gauda Brahmaņas and the Gauda Kayasthas are not wholly unfounded. There is a substratum of truth in them. The earliest epigraphic mention of the name Kayastha that we have been able to trace hitherto, is in the Damodarpur copperplate grants of the fifth and the sixth century A.D. There is, no doubt, mention of the word in some of the earliest Dharma-samhitas, Puranas and Sanskrit dramas, such as the Viru-samhita, Yajnavalkya-samhita, Vrhat-parâšara samhita, Brahma-purdna, Padmapurana, etc., Myochakafika and Mudra-rákşasa, but nobody has yet been able to fix the dates of these texts with any precision. Anyhow, we believe, the word is not found earlier than the third century A.D. This leads us to think that the Kayasthas had their original home in northern Bengal.
We may now conclude that
(1) Mr. Radha Govinda Basak was right in thinking that the Sravasti mentioned in the Silimpur inscription was situated in Pundra or Gauda and must be identified with the city of the same name mentioned in the Matsya and the Karma Purdnas.
(2) Sravasti-Tarkkâri in Gauda of Bengal was not only the abode of learned Brahmanas but of learned Kayasthas as well.
BOOK-NOTICES. THE ANTIQUITIES OY SIND, with Historical Outline, seems to have been completod five years ago, as the
by H. COUNS, M.R.A.S. Archeological Survey preface is dated in January 1925. Consequently of India, vol. XLVI, Imperial Serien. 127x01: but brief allusion has been made (p. 168) to Mohenjopp. vii+184, with 103 plates (4 in colours). daro (or Mohenjo-dhado, as Mr. Cousens writes the Calcutta, 1929.
name), the site to which such outstanding import. We welcome the appearance of this richly illustrated ance now attaches. Though the work is not, there. monograph by the veteran archæologist, who was fore, altogether up-to-date, it contains much matter
sociated for so many years of his service with of permanent value, and will serve hereafter ag Western India and Sind. It is based primarily an important adjunct to the detailed accounts now upon his own explorations and rorohes carried in preparation of the results of the many years' out many years ago, for Mr. Cousens retired in 1910, excavations at Mohenjo-daro and of Bir Aurel Stein's but it incorporates the regults of further excavations recent and most important exploration in Jhalawan, carried out by his successors, as he has kept in close Kharan and Makrin, which, with the work already touch with subsequent developments; each section done by Mr. Hargreaves and others in Baluchistan, in fact boars witne to the personal interest that has should throw a flood of light upon the old Indus inspired him in his work. Publication was first valley civilization and its connexion with the delayed by the outbreak of the great war. It ancient Iranian and Mesopotamian oultures.
"Likco Bravaatt-Takichild, Bravant-Siyamba ww perhaps one of the thirty-six village when the Kaynathes rouided. For we find in the Ratnapur Inscription of Prithideve, that a Vaatavyn-Kayastha named Dovagnos orooled templo of five at a village named Samba (Ep. Ind., vol. I. p. 46). This Samba mighi de corruption of Siyamba, wherefrom this Vestavy-Kaynatha family might have migrated to Ratnapur and named their new todabod after the old in Gouda