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No. 17.]
INSCRIPTIONS ON THE MATHURA MON-CAPITAL.
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names Buddhila (or Budhila) and Bu[d]dhadêva. The last named, who is termed an áchárya and represented as a champion of the Sarvâstivâdin school against the rival Mahasanghikas, bears a name which cannot have been rare; one teacher of this name is mentioned by Taranatha as a leader of the Vaibhâshikas (see Schiefner's translation, pp. 4 and 67, and the references in the St. Petersburg Dictionary), and we have therefore no sufficient means of identification. It is different with some of the other names.
In the first place, the Great Satrap Rajûla himself and his son, the Satrap Suḍasa, have both been identified with rulers named on coins and in other inscriptions from Mathurâ (see Bühler, pp. 531-2, Ep. Ind. Vol. I. pp. 195-6, 199; Cunningham, Archaeological Survey Reports, Vol. III. p. 30, and Vol. XX. pp. 48-9; V. A. Smith, Mathura, p. 21; Rapson, Indian Coins, p. 9, § 33). These identifications were made by Cunningham, who also proposed to identify the Yuvaraja Kharaôsta with the Kharamosta, son of Artas, known from coins, a suggestion which is scarcely tenable (Bühler, op. cit. p. 532). The further identification of the Great Satrap Kusûlaa Pädika with Pâtika, son of the Satrap Liaka Kusûlaka, named in the Taxila plate, is important not only as supplying a date, though in an unknown era,- for the Taxila Plate is dated in the year 78, (in the time) of the Great King Môga,- but also as implying that the other Satraps mentioned may also have ruled in distant places. It appears therefore that the inscriptions make a point of naming with respect the chief representatives of the Kshatrapa dominion in Northern India; and this is a strong argument for retaining the evident interpretation of inscription P. as 'in honour of the whole Saka realm' (Sakastana). It is therefore important to ascertain what other indications of nationality the inscriptions supply.
In an article published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1906 (pp. 181-216; see also pp. 460-4) I have endeavoured to prove (1) that Sakas inhabited the region now known as Seistan as early as the time of Darius the Great and Alexander; (2) that the inscriptions of the lion-capital exhibit a mixture of Persian and Saka nomenclature; and I have inferred that the Kshatrapas of Northern India were the representatives of a mixed Parthian and Saka domination. I think that all these propositions must be adhered to. Upon the first of them we need not dwell here. The second is strongly supported a priori by the fact that Pâtika of Taxila, who bears himself a distinctively Persian name, mentions as his overlord the Great King Môga, whose name is with equal distinctiveness Saka.
I may here refer to a small point in the Taxila inscription which is not without interest. The form of the phrase chhatrapasa Liako Kusûlakó náma tasa (for chhatrapasa Ligkasa Kusûlakasa), which recurs in a second phrase, has been by Bühler compared with passages in two of the Jaina inscriptions from Mathura. We may perhaps find something of the kind in later Sanskrit inscriptions and in the style of the Panchatantra and Hitopadesa. But the turn of the phrase is so conspicuous a feature of the edicts of the Achaemenids that we are strongly tempted to regard it as, like the earliest Indian architecture, derived through the Satraps from a Persian model.
This is not the place for resuming at length the discussion of the etymology of all the names occurring in the inscriptions. A few points may be mentioned :
1. The name Kharaôsta or Kharha (hra)ôsta, as =khshathra, sovereignty,' + ôsta, 'blessing,' is practically certain. The initial kha, which reappears in khaharâta with variant kshaharáta, presents no difficulty; it recurs in the kharapallána (no doubt khshathrapihlána, defence of sovereignty,') of the new Sârnâth inscription (above, Vol. VIII. p. 173 ff.). The variation, in the initial consonant group, of which we find a third form in chhatrapa, is of the same nature as that in cavalier and chivalry, that is to say, it is due to historical and dialectical differences.1
1 On a coin given by Prof. Rapson, Indian Coins, Pl. iii. No. 1, we have Kshahardta in Brahmi together with Chhaharáta in Kharoshthi; some of the Nasik inscriptions have Khakhardta, etc.
T2
