Epigraphia Indica Vol 01

SR No.: 032555
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1893
Total Pages: 528
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 21 MB

Page 416

JAINA INSCRIPTIONS FROM MATHURA.
381
are driven out of their holes and often take refuge in the houses. In the Pauranic wor. ship we find the Naga-panchami, the snake-festival on the fifth lunar day of the bright half of Sravana, which is still very popular and celebrated very generally. There exist also a few Någa temples. In Gujarat the most famous is the so-called Nag of Dehemå, which lies in the north-west corner of the province, close to the Raņ of Kachchh. I visited Dehema in 1873 and found there a temple, consisting of a small dome about five feet high, with an opening towards the east. Inside there was a stone slab showing in the centre the relievo of a large cobra standing upright on its tail, and on both sides some amaller ones in the same position. A short inscription stated that the image was erected in Vikrama Samvat 1212, or A.D. 1156-58. The stone slab at Mathura, of which our inscription speaks, probably bore a similar representation. As regards Dadhikarņa, bis name occurs in the Haridamka, where he is invoked in the áhnika mantra, the daily prayer which is said to have been recited originally by Baladeva and after him by Krishņa. It thus appears that the worship of Dadhikarna certainly formed part of the
Bhdgapata ritual and was practised at Mathura in early times. These facts may indicate that our No. XVIII is not a Buddhist, but a Bbågavata inscription. But it is quite possible that the Buddhists in whose legends tbe Någas play a great part, and on whose Stupas they are often represented as worshippers of the Bo-tree, may have taken over the worship of Dadhikarna from the Brahmaņs. Finally, another very interesting point in this inscription is the statement that the dedicators of the stone were the "sons of those kailálakas who were famous as the Chåndaka brothers." It is impossible to interpret kaildlaka otherwise than as a synonym of baildlin, which, according to Panini. IV, 3, 110, originally was a name of those actors who studied the Satras of Silâlin, and according to the Koshas was used later to denote any actor. Our inscription, therefore, teaches us that Mathurà had its actors in the first or second century of our era, and makes us actually acquainted with the name of such a troup. It further shows that play-acting was then, as in the present day, the business of particular families - a fact which may also be inferred from the introduction to several Sanskrit dramas where the wati is sometimes called the wife of the sútradhára, and his brothers are mentioned as actors. In a Jaina story of the clever boy Bharata, we hear even of a natagráma, a whole village inhabited by actors.
No. I. - 4. 1. --" []gaat a[fa]onell pl fee wwe gar[1]# aferit tant TH
fara[1] 2. (]urat []@umfunt veri afuf-7----- Eufra []B. 1. gruw fo[a] ----
2: TAMTE AFA (AT) #
» 8 BAO 8Aheb V. N. Mandlik's article in the Jour. Bo. Br. Roy. As. Soc., vol. XI, pp. 16984., where mans interest. ing local customs are mentioned.
Harivala, 1, 168, 17, where the Caloutta edition has the mispriut ndgarddadli-karnanya ; see also Langlois' French translation, tome 1, p. 507, where the prayer forms the 118th Adhyaya.
Insised on the pedestal of a small squatted figure of a Jina.--the stone measuring 2 feet 1 inch by 1 foot 7 inches, and found in the west of the Kankall Tila at the second Juina temple. The bracketted letters are more or less defoed; but it nothing is stated to the contrary, I consider the reading nevertheless to be certuin.
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