Epigraphia Indica Vol 33

SR No.: 032587
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1959
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 366

261
No. 49]
INSCRIPTION IN CAVE IV AT AJANTA
The passage indicating the persons for whose supreme knowledge the pious act is stated to have been made reads: mätä-pitrös tät-ambāyāś-ch-āgr-ānvavāya-su..........s-sarvva-satvā(ttvā)nāñch-änuttara-jñāna(n-a)vāptaye. The expression tat-ambayāḥ in the singular may of course mean 'the ambā (i.e. mother) of [one's] täta (i.e. father)', that is to say, 'one's father's mother'. There are, however, words of common use in Sanskrit to indicate one's father's mother and tät-ämbä is not such an expression. It is, therefore, not improbable that the expression has been used in the inscription to convey a special meaning such as that of one's father's step-mother or aunt. The expression agr-änvavaya-su is incomplete as about six aksharas of the line are lost after su. We may possibly suggest agr-änvavāya-suhridām, 'of the prominent friends of the family [of Mathura, the donor of the image]'. There is space for another word between su[hridam] and s-sarvva and we are inclined to restore the damaged section as 'suhridāms-ch-atmanas-sarvva°, the word ätmanaḥ meaning of one's own'. Thus Mathura seems to have installed the Buddha image in the Vihara or Buddhist monastery (i.e. Cave IV at Ajanța), which he caused to be built, for the attainment of supreme knowledge, leading to Nirvana, by all beings including his parents, his father's mother, step-mother or aunt, the prominent friends of his family and his own self.
The importance of the inscription lies in the welcome light it throws on the controversy about the age of Cave IV at Ajanță. The difference of opinion amongst scholars is due to the fact that, in the absence of any inscription in the said Cave, they had so long to depend entirely on the less specific evidence such as that of architectural and sculptural style. Besides the absence of inscriptions in many of the caves, another fact contributing to the confusion regarding the dates of the Ajanța caves is the wrong date assigned by earlier writers to kings Devasena and Harishēņa of the Väkäṭaka family, during whose rule respectively the Ghatotkacha Cave and Cave XVI at Ajanta were excavated. This point has already been discussed above.
A number of writers on the subject are inclined to assign Cave IV at Ajanță to a date between the sixth and eighth centuries A. D. They divide twentynine caves at Ajanta into two broad groups, the first of which is called Early or Hinayana and Caves VIII-XIII are included in it by some scholars. This group of caves is assigned to the period between the second century B.C. and the second or third century A. D. The second group, called Later or Mahāyāna and supposed to be removed from the other by a considerable period of time, is subdivided into two sub-groups. To the first of these two are assigned Caves XIV-XX believed to have been excavated in the sixth century due to Cave XVI bearing an inscription mentioning Vākāṭaka Harishēņa whose reign was assigned to the age in question, while Caves VI-VII of the same class are attributed to a date between 450 and 550 A. D. Caves I-V and XXI-XXIX, constituting the second sub-group of the Later or Mahayana group and assigned to the period between 500 and 650 A. D. or between the sixth or seventh and the seventh or eighth centuries A.D., are called the latest Caves at Ajanta ' and' the most ornate group of the whole series'. According to these scholars, therefore, Cave IV, the largest Vihara at Ajanța, belongs to the latest group of Ajanță Caves which may be as late as the seventh or eighth century A. D. There is, however, another view, according to which Cave IV is the earliest Mahayana Vihara at Ajaṇṭā and 'was probably excavated in the third century A.D. or still earlier' though the decorative work may have been done at a later date. But the inscription under study now shows that the cave was excavated about the first half of the sixth century A. D.
1 J. Fergusson and J. Burgess, The Cave Temples of India, 1880, pp. 80 ff.; J. Burgess ASWI, Vol. IV (Report on the Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions, 1876-79), pp. 43 ff.; J. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, 2nd ed., pp. 188 ff.; A. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, pp. 28, 76 96; etc. There is difference among scholars as regards the date of individual caves.
G. Yazdani, Ajanta, Part III, Text, 1946, p. 7.