Epigraphia Indica Vol 07

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 75

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. VII.
(11) AS. and CTI. Codedna.-(12) The first k is very indistinct, and the would seem to have at the top the vowel-mark & or 0,-(13) I am quite willing to believe that the reading proponed by the first editors, savana vasavdoitanan, is well founded; but a portion of it has become quite invisible, and between na and và there is certainly room for another letter. It is true that between si and ta there is also room for one more character, which is, however, quite improbable.
TRANSLATION. "Success! By UsabhadAta, the son of Diniks (and) son-in-law of the king, the Khaharåta, the Kshatrapa Nahapana, who gave three-hundred-thousand cows, who made gifts of gold and a tirtha on the river Bandsa, who gave to the Devas) and the Brahmanas sixteen villages, who at the pure tirtha Pabhasa gave eight wives to the Brahmanas, and who also fed annually a hundred-thousand (Brahmanas),- there has been given the village of Karajika for the support of the ascetios living in the caves at Valdraka without any distinction of sect or origin, for all who would keep the varsha (there)."
In explaining these lines, we have to compare closely Nos. 10 and 14 at Nasik. A portion of the first, especially, which is better preserved, comes very near to our text. The river Banasa (compare Nâsik No. 14, 1. 10) or Bårnåsa (N&sik No. 10, 1. 1) is represented in Western India by two rivers named Bapas, with which it has been successively identified. The first belongs to Northern Gujarat, passes Palampur, and falls into the Ran of Kachh (Burgess). The second flows through Eastern Rajput&ns and joins the Chambal (Burgess, and Bhagwanlal Indraji, Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVI. p. 638). In Nâsik No. 10, 1. 4, we shall see that, after & campaign in the south, Rishabhadatta returned to the sacred lake of Pushkar near Ajmere, bathed there, and made pious gifts. Honce it may be assumed that this country possessed a special importance for his family, and it is a priori natural to localise there other donations of his. Now it is precisely in those parts that the second river Baņas flows, and until beiter information is obtained it seems to me more probable that this river is here alluded to; but the precise nature of the gifts alluded to is not easy to determine with certainty. The reading suvanatithao is snpported by the comparison with Nasik No. 10, 1. 1, where we find swvarnadánatirthakaréna. Our text is an abridgment of this expression, on which it is based, just as satasahasan in l. 3 corresponds to brahmaratataschasri at Nâsik. After having hesitated between the two translations the founder of a tirtha and giver of a gift of gold' and the founder of a tirtha by means of a gift of gold' (OTI. p. 33, note), Bühler seems to have decided in favour of the second (A8. p. 101). I decidedly prefer to adopt the first, like Bhagwanlal (Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVI. p. 571). If the second were true, svarnadána would represent nothing but a kind of tautology. It is evident that a tirtha cannot be established without expending money. Besides, to take the first portion of the compound suvarpadánatirthakara in the sense of the instrumental is not inadmissible, but rather far-fetched. Finally, I notioe at least one case where the two different ideas are combined in the same way, but in terms which are not ambiguous. The Nadupuru grant of Annavêma' says : - Yên-dgrahard bahanó vitirpd Hemddri-dandni kritáni yênal tirthdaho sattrani tatani yếna. Though this text is much more modern than that of K&rle, it has ita value as witness of a tradition whose constancy we shall have occasion to verify in still other formuls. We would have certainly found some decisive argument in favour of the correct interpretation, whichever it may be, in the Nasik inscription No. 14, 1. 11, which follows a different redaction; but unfortunately its text is mutilated.
Nasik No. 14 has punyatirthd; puta is a perfect equivalent of punya, and, besides the shape of the letter, the long & attached to the p confirms this reading. Everybody agrees, I believe, in identifying this Pabhasa with Prabhasa or Somanathapattana in Kathilwar, where
Above, Vol. III. p. 288, verse 9.