Epigraphia Indica Vol 08

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

Page 95

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. VIII.
certainly meant. It follows therefore that the translation put forward for vridhi padikafata cannot be upheld.
The only safe way is to start from the locatives padike fate. In Kanheri No. 15, Bühler translated : 'two hundred bearing (a monthly interest of) one kärshápana.' Hence he seems to have taken sate as a dual. Such an interpretation is out of the question ; it is discountenanced not only by the grammatical inadmissibility, but also by the repetition of the formula in our own text, where the numbers in each case are quite different. Nevertheless, I think that Bühler was perfectly right as to the general meaning. In fact, if wo take, and we cannot well help doing so, tate as a locative, we are easily led by the two locatives to the translation : at one pratika per cent.' In India the rate of interest is generally stated monthly (compare Mami, viii. v. 141, etc.). So it would imply a yearly income of 12 per cent. which, conformably to the ideas of the country, is far from excessive. We shall actually find in N. 17 a capital of 100 kárshápanas bringing in annually the ccst of a chivarika of 12 kárshápanas. At this rate of interest the two-thousand karshapanas bear exactly the two-hundred-and-forty kárshápaņas required yearly to provide the twenty monks with robes at 12 pieces each. It is true that the 75 pratikas produced on the same terms by the other investment of 1000 kárshápanas are not quite sufficient to secure to the twenty monks as kufanamála one kärshapana monthly during four months, which would amount to eighty pieces. But this fact does not entail any real contradiction. If the kusanamúla at Kaņheri amounted to one pratika monthly, it does not follow that it must have been of exactly the same value at Nasik ; nor is it sure even that the varsha, which we know to have differed in length according to time and place should have here lasted four months, rather than three. The only remaining difficulty is purely grammatical. I dare not decide if we ought to correct padika- (and payunapadika-) tate, or to admit some irregular formation such as the familiar or technical language is apt to produce. Anyhow the meaning remains clear: 'interest at the rate of one (and three quarters of one) pratika monthly.' The ye which follows the number 2000 of course refers to chivarikasahasrani be; it stands for the neuter yani, exactly as in l. 2 the ye following chátudisasa. The sequel shows that we have to supply prayutáni or payutáni. As to dhára = district, compare Dr. Fleet's Gupta Inscr. p. 173, note.
I have explainpd before (N. 10) why I understand múla not as = 'value, capital,' bat as meaning 'stem.' The phraseology used here and the way in which the words are separated seem to supply another decisive argument in favour of that interpretation. In phalakavara I prefer taking vára, not, like Bühler, as = 'number, multitude,' but as denoting the enclosure, the premises where the official documents are kept on boards (phalaka). There are no instances from literature, by which the real meaning can be tested. Anyhow archives seem to be understood. This inscription suggests a double formality : first the notification (frávita) of the gift, and secondly its registration (nibadha). As nigamasabhd seems to mean the public ball, the town's hall,' it has been generally admitted that the first locative, migamasabhaya, refers to the place where the proclamation had to be made, the second, phalakaváre, to the embodiment into the archives. But the sequel shows that phalakavdre charitrato forms a sentence complete in itself. On the other hand, I have repeatedly insisted upon the necessity of taking into consideration the law wbich in Sanskrit puts the determinative term before the determined one. For this reason I have translated the sentence as above. The last words, phalakavdre, etc., are only a compendious attestation of the fact that the whole endowment was recorded in the archives conformably to rule.
The same formula is repeated at the end of the final clause which follows, and which is fraught with such difficulties that Bühler did not attempt even a conjectural translation. Bhagwanlal has been bolder ; I believe that, except in some grammatical details, be bas on the whole been successful. We have before us a double date, 41 and 45, for the endowment,