Epigraphia Indica Vol 09

SR No.: 032563
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: E Hultzsch, Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1907
Total Pages: 498
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 28 MB

Page 380

TWO BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS FROM SARNATH.
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Mahết, which has been edited by me, above, Vol. VIII. pp. 180-181. This fact is of considerable interest. First it shows that I was right in explaining the word dindas-cha in line 2 of the Sahết Mahêt image inscription as "a staff for supporting the umbrella over the head of the Bôdhisattva" (1. c. p. 180). Secondly, and this is by far the most important point connected with this inscription, we now know for certain that the Sahêt Mahết statue was found by Cunningham in situ, or, in other words, that no possible doubt can be raised against the correctness of Cunningham's identification of Sahêt Mahêt with śråvasti. For although the records of the Lucknow Museum are not as clear as one would have expected them to be in regard to the provenance of the stone, Dr. Vogel has pointed out to me some very conclusive evidence, which in my opinion makes it certain that the stone was found by Dr. Hoey during his excavations at Sahət Mahêt in 1885. The only possible doubt that could be, and has been, raised against the bearing of the Sahệt Mahết, now Calcutta Museum, statue upon the question of the identity of Sahet Mahêt with Srâvastî, turned around this point: did Cunningham find the Bodhisattva image at Sahêt Mahệt in its original position, or had it been shifted to this place from somewhere else ? Strange though such a transportation would appear to us primit facie, it still has been, as far as I know, an assumption that seemed to recommend itself to certain scholars. I am afraid their position has now become definitely weakened by the discoveries above referred to.
Unfortunately no further help is given to us by the new inscription for restoring the missing words in the beginning of the inscription on the pedestal of the Bodhisattva statue in the Calcutta Museum. Only the two letters vapu in the beginning of line 2 show that I was right in restoring the second word in the Calcutta inscription as dévaputrasya, and further in ascribing the Calcutta statue to the time of either Kaņishka or Huvishka. However, this is a very small matter, for which hardly any additional proof was required owing to the occurrence of the name of the Trépitaka Bala, the donor of the Calcutta image, in a Mathura inscription of the year 33 of Huvishka.
I now edit the inscription from impressions and a photograph, kindly supplied to me by Dr. Vogel.
TEXT. 1. ........
..........[de] 2. vapa(trasya] ..........
..................................... [v]ihår[i]4. (sya] ..... ............................ (bhiksha]5. sya [Balasya trêpita]kasya . 6. dånam Bodhi[sa]tvô chh[a]trams daņdag=cha 7. Savastiyê (Bhagavató chamka[m]& Kôsamba8. [kuţiyê ach&]r[yy]a[nań Sarvva]s[t}ivadina[mi] 9. [pa]r[i]gra[he].
cios
.No. 43.-TWO BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS FROM SARNATH.
BY STEN Konow. During the excavations in Sârnâth in February 1907, I found a fragment of a stone umbrella lying between the bases of two small brick stúpas to the west of the main shrine exca
Dr. Vogel informs me that Pandit Daya Ram Sabni has discovered additional proof, that even in the days of Govindachandra of Kananj, the traditional identity of the two places was still alive. Seo Jours. R. As. Soc. 1908, Pp. 971 and ft.
* See above, Vol. VIII., p. 182.
. It is doubtful, if the word was written chhatrath, as in the inscription on the pedestal. However, the next word clearly is dandafscha, and not dandafscha, as it is spelt on the pedestal of the statue.
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