________________
S02
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XII.
C.-On the pedestal of the Hashtnagar statue of Buddha.
Mr. L. White King, B.C.S., discoverd at Hashtnagar in or about 1883 a standing figure of Buddha, which the people worshipped as representing one of their gods. It stood on. a pedestal carved with figures of Buddha and some of his disciples, a specimen of Gandhara sculpture, and the pedestal bore an inscription in one line below the figures. The people allowed Mr. King to remove only the pedestal, and it is now in the British Museum. The squeeze from which the inscription is figured was supplied to Dr. Fleet by Sir C. Hercules Read.
Hashtnagar, "the eight towns", is a tract of 303 square miles in the Charsadda tahsil of the Peshawar district, the eight chief villages of which are held to occupy the site of the ancient Pushkalavati, Peukelaotis (Imp. Gas., XVIII, p. 60). Charsadda is on the north side of the Kabul river, some 15 miles towards the N. E. from Peshawar. Pushkarävati (or Pushkalāvati) and Takshasila (Taxila) were both in the Gandhara country, and they are said to have been the capitals of Pushkara and Taksha respectively, the two sons of Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, king of Ayodhya. Gandhara thus included Taxila, and this is also stated in various places in the Jataka. Hiuen-tsiang gives Po-lu-sha-pu-lo, Peshawar, as the capital of Gandhara.3
Mr. V. A. Smith published the inscription, with a rough rubbing of it, in Ind. Ant., Vol. XVIII (1889), p. 257, and cited it again, with a photo-etching of it, in Journ. Beng. As. Soc., Vol. LVIII (1889), p. 144. In both places he gave Cunningham's reading of the date, 274 Emborasmasa, etc. Working on those materials M. Senart pointed out that the tens and units in the date were 84 and the month Prothavadasa, (Journ. Asiat., VIIIe série, Vol. XV, 1890, Part i, pp. 124-6). Bühler in 1891 adhered to the date as 274 Pôstavadasa, (Ind. Ant., Vol. XX, p. 394). But M. Senart subsequently fixed the year as 384 (Journ. Asiat., IXe série, Vol. XIII, 1899, Part i, pp. 530-1). The year-date, however, has been called in question again lately; hence Dr. Fleet has had a careful squeeze of the inscription made and reproduced as fig. C in the annexed plate. I have compared this illustration with the pedestal itself, and it is quite accurate: the white line along the middle is a photographic effect, due to a slope in the stone from the upper part, which is more prominent, down to the lower part.
The pedestal is 13.6 inches (34 cm.) long; but a portion of 28 inches (7 cm.) has been broken away on the left side, leaving only 10-8 inches (27 cm.) intact. This portion with its inscription is shown in fig. C, but it is probable that there was more inscribed on the fragment lost.
The inscription is in Prakrit in well cut Kharoshthi characters. I agree with M. Senart's reading of it. The year is undoubtedly 384, and the month Prothavada, the second letter being th and not st (as shown in Bühler's Table I), for st has a complete cross-bar.
TEXT.
Sam 3 100 20 20 20 20 4 Prothavadasa masasa divasammi panchami 4 1
TRANSLATION.
The year 384, on the day five, 5, of the month Pranshṭhapada (Bhadrapada).
D. On the stone relic-box from Sanchi.
This relic box was found in stupa II at Sanchi in the Bhopal State, and is described by Geu. Cunningham in his Bhilsa Topes, p. 286, with a drawing of the box and its inscription
1 Vayu Purana, 88, 189-190; Brahmanda Purana, III, 68, 190-1: which suggest that Pushkara and Taksha hailt the two towns. Vishnu Purana, IV, 4, 47 merely names the two sons. See Journ. Roy. As. Soc., 1914, p. 286.
2 See Jätaka, Inder.
Beal, Si-yu-ki, Vol. I, p. 97. See Watters, On Yuan Chuang, Vol. II, pp. 201, 214. Jours. Roy. As. Soc., 1913, p. 95u.
