Epigraphia Indica Vol 12

Author(s): Sten Konow
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 47

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XII.
were presented to the Indian Museum in 1909, and among them was found the record (A) of Asokachalladēva, of the Lakshmaņasēna year 51.1
The second inscription was discovered seventy-three years ago and was published by Prinsep with a drawing by Mr. V. Hathorne. It was subsequently lost sight of and Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra could not find it at Bodh-Gaya, while Pandit Bhagwan Lal had to edit it from Prinsep's drawing.* Baba Rakhaldas Banerji, however, found the inscription stone built into one of the walls of a modern building at Bsdh-Gayà, in January 1906. I am indebted to him for an inked impression of this inscription.
Both inscriptions are dated. They are very quaintly worded, and Babu Rakhaldas has already drawn attention to them in his article on "Lakshmana-sons and the Mussulman Conquest." The language of the first inscription is the incorrect Sanskrit which is common in Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts from Nepal and has been also found in the Hasra Kol inscription edited by Mr. Venis. The characters of the inscriptions belong to the Eastern variety of the North Indian alphabet of the twelfth century A.D.
Inscription (A) has been incised on a rectangular slab of granite measuring 19" by 10", and consists of thirteen lines. It records the erection of a Buddhist shrine (vihāri), with an image of the Buddha, by Bhatta Damodara, etc., with the assent of king Asökachalladēva at the request of a number of his officials. Provision was also made for offerings (naitēdya) in three chaityas with lamps by certain officials, to be offered to the god daily by members of the Singhalese order at Mababodhi and others. The date is the 29th day of Bhadre of the year 51 since the commencement of the reign (now) past, of the illustrious Lakshmaņasēna.
In editing the text of this inscription Pandit Bhagwan Lal? supposed that the kakapadamarks in line 9 made on either side of the letter were inserted by the royal preceptor (rijaguru) who is stated to have been an inhabitant of Kašmira (1. 5), and he, naturally, therefore, took the letters on the top of the inscription to be Sārada. It may be noticed that whenever a kāka pada-mark is inserted in a line and the corrected or inserted portion written in the margin, the number of the line is always given with the words corrected or inserted, whether it be in an inscription or in a manuscript. In this very inscription tho word samasta, which has been omitted in the third line, has been written on the top with the numeral 3 after it to denote the line with which it is connected. Similarly, with egard to the omissions in the ninth line it may be expected that a numerical symbol for 9 was used after each of the letters meant to be inserted in that line. Again, the similarity between the pumeral 9 of 29 in the last line of the inscription and the index numerals on the top of the inscription, which latter Dr. Bhagwan Lal mistook for the hooked form of a dental sa, is very striking. The mistake must have been due to the supposition, as already stated, that a learned Pandit from Kāśmir entered the omissions in the script of his motherland. If, however, the symbols which Bhagwan Lal read as the hooked sa of the North-Western Indian alphabets be correctly taken to be the Bengali numeral 9, the text affords a far easier way of restoring the inscription. It remains only to note that the Sanskrit verse at the beginning of the record is the usual formula of the Buddhist creed and that Singhala-sangh-adayas in ll. 9-10 perhaps indicates the income which the Mahabodhi derived from the Singhalese pilgrims of whom evidently there was a large number.
Another missing inscription found in this collection is the Govindpur Stone Inscription of the Saka year 1059 (Ep. Ind., Vol. II, p. 333).
* Journ, Beng. As. Soc., Vol. V, p. 6. * Budda-Gaya, p. 7. . Ind. Ant., Vol. X, pp. 846 f.
Journ, and Proc. Beng. 43. Soc., Vol. IV, pp. 459 ft.
• Professor Kielhorn accepts the form Afõkavalladöva as read by Bhagwan Lal (see his List of Northern Inscriptions, Nos. 575 to 677).
Journ. Bo. 41. Soc., Vol. XVI, pp. 357 ft.