________________
No. 8.)
NASIK CAVE INSCRIPTIONS.
87
merated in 11. 3-5, 6-7,7-8 correspond to the first three commemorated in N. 10, while, on the other hand, 11. 10 - 11 allude to the gifts made on the Barnasa river (1. 1 in N. 10). It may be remarked, en passant, that the three words suvara titha cha in l. 12 prove that the interpretation I have advocated for the compound in K. 13 is correct.
I do not believe that notyaka, Sanskrit naityaka, must be understood, as taken by Bühler, in the sense of daily rites. No daily rites performed by Ushavadata, on the occasion of which the Brahmaps would have been fed, oan be intended here, as those distributions are extended to a number of different localities. Regular continuous works and gifts are meant here in opposition to special and exceptional foundations. One doubt only remains : are we to trang. late among the regular liberalities,' or is the locative used for the instrumental :by (in virtue of) regular liberalities?' The vague character of the syntax in this style (many analogous cases may be found in my commentary on the Maháva stu) does not exclude the second interpretation, which in itself seems to be the more satisfactory of the two.
Bühler gave up the interpretation of the last words : chefayate tasa; and Bhagwanlal's translation of Adyate by 'is known' does not convey any real meaning. The vowel signs are rather uncertain in this part of the inscription. I feel little hesitation in reading cha. As to what follows, a double hypothesis offers itself to my mind : either to read hay[u]te (tam) tasa. . . . . or ayat[]ta sa . . . . . ; in either case we have to admit an irregular transcription of niya or niyuo by faydo or fayto. It would be exactly the same graphical peculiarity as is found already at Girnar in the eighth of Piyadasi's edicts, which reads (1.1) flaydsu = niyydsu. In N. 6 we have already met with an irregular palatalisation of t to ch in the same word, which is there written niyachita instead of mydlita. To tell the truth, it is towards the restoration of flaydtita rather than rayuta that I should incline. Ushavadâta seems to use the word with some predilection (as in N. 12), and it fits in better with the first at least - suvandni- of the two substantives on which it would bear. Anyhow, and in spite of the uncertainty resulting from the sudden interruption of the text, the general meaning seems clear.
No. 146, Plate vi. (Ksh. 8.) Immediately below the preceding inscription.
TEXT. 1 . . . . . . . gavatá brábmaps 2 . . . . . . . . . ?pi pamchagam .000 (1) 3 . . . . . . masaya tîrthe (2) 4 . . . . . . deya da japa (3).
REMARKS. : (1) G. (sahajarani panchasa 50000 ; AS. do sahasa 2000.AS. does not succeed any more than I in making out the traces that G. interpreta as srd, which is graphically very unlikely. AS. interprets as do the character which G. reads ni, and this reading seems at least probable. In the following letters the position of G. appears to me much stronger than that of AS. But the joined to ta is at least as probable as that which seems to be appended to pa. As to the number, the thousand is clearly visible, and also a bracket on the right which has caused the whole to be interpreted as 2000. But the do sahasa cannot be upheld, and pathchása is at least likely ; on the other hand, it seems indeed as if the sign for thousand 'were followed by some exponent, too much erased to be confidently made out, which probably expressed the number of thousands. If Bhagwanlal took it for 50, I must own that the visible traces do not seem to favour this reading. But it is commended by his reading of the foregoing word. (2) AS. mdsiyasi tithe. Tirthe seems certain, especially on the back of the estampage.
