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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIV.
The greatest difficulty connected with the interpretation of the inscription rests with the word ayasa, 1. 1. Sir John considered it as the gen, of Aya, or Azes, and explained it to mean that the record was dated in an era founded by Azes, and this era he identified with the Vikrama era. Messrs. Thomas and Fleet were of opinion that the word could hardly be the name of a king, because no royal title is used. They further maintained that, if ayasa were really the name of a king, it would place the inscription in the reign of this king, who would then most likely have to be identified with the Khushana mentioned in 1. 3. Dr. Thomas propounded the possibility of considering ayasa as the gen. of a demonstrative pronoun, and Dr. Fleet adopted the explanation and translated: "In the year 136: on the day 15 of this (present) month Ashadha," or "In the year 136: on the day 15 of the mouth Ashadha of this (year)."
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A form ayasa of the base which we know from Sanskrit ayam is, of course, possible, though I do not think it a likely one. But the use of such a pronoun in this place is not in agreement with the practice in other old inscriptions. The use of atra, etaye, etc., in atra divase in the Sue Vihar inscription, etaye purvaye in the Patika plate, and so forth, cannot be compared, because such expressions always follow after the mention of the month and the day and recapitulate the whole dating, just as isa divase in the present record.
M. Boyer agrees with Messrs. Fleet and Thomas in thinking that ayasa is not the genitive of Aya, Azes. He explains ayasa as standing for ayyasa and this further as corresponding to Sanskrit adyasya. The month Ashadha he thinks may have been called adya because the year was ashadḍhadi. I do not know any old date which might be compared. Mr. Bhandarkar likewise explains ayasa as a Prakrit form corresponding to Sanskrit adyasya, but thinks that it has been added because there was, in that year, a second, intercalated, Ashadha.
Sir John Marshall is quite right in comparing the wording of the Taxila copper-plate' where we read samvatsaraye athasatatimae 78 maharayasa mahamtasa Mogasa Panemasa masasa divase panchame 5. I do not know of any other old inscription where we find a similar addition between the mention of the year and the month. If, however, Ayasa is the name of a ruler, the inscription must, as urged by Messrs. Thomas and Fleet, be dated during the reign of this king.
Dr. Fleet further remarks that, if Ayasa were the name of the king ruling when the inscription was deposited, this would tend to mark him as the Kushana king referred to in line 3. Such an inference is not, however, necessary. The so-called Takht-i-Bahi inscription is dated daring the reign of Gudafara, bat in honour of another prince, and the same can very well be the case in the Taxila record.
The chief difficulty in explaining Ayasa as the name of a king rests with the fact that no royal title is used in connexion with the name. I have thought of the possibility of explaining this anomaly by assuming that Aya was the ruler, not of Taxila, but of the donor's home Noacha, and that Azes II might have spent his last days as a local ruler of Noacha. Such an assumption cannot, however, be substantiated by any fact, and the absence of every royal designation is so extraordinary that I think we must abaudou Sir John's explanation of the word ayasa altogether.
Provisionally, therefore, I am inclined to adopt the explanation of Mr. Bhandarkar. We do not know how dy was regularly treated in the old dialect of the North-Western frontier. In the Shābāzgarhi and Mansehra versions of the Asoka edicts dy becomes j in aja, Skr. adya, but in uyana, Skr. udyana, it becomes y as in Pali. It is possible that the same development
Cf. Fleet, JRAS., 1914, p. 998.
1 JRAS., 1915, pp. 817 f.
