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No. 13.]
SOME UNPUBLISHED AMARAVATI INSCRIPTIONS.
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Vakātaka dynasty came into power about 300 A.D. If my identification is correct, we can now trace the Vakatakas iu the Deccan as early as about 150 B.C.
But the real historical value of the present collection of Amarāvati votive inscriptions consists in the light which it throws by palæographic indications on the successive stages in the growth of this noble mongment. These indications, in conjunction with the chronological indications of the sculptures themselves, may enable stndents to reconstruct the history of the Mahāchaitya for about 4 to 5 centuries, from the second century B.C. to the third century A.D. According to a tradition preserved in Tibet Nāgārjana, with whose name the Mahāyāna reformi is closely associated, " surrounded the great shrine of Dhānyakataka with a railing" (.Irchæological Surrey of Southern India, Vol. I, p. 5). A passage in Bāna's Hausacharita (Eng. lish translation, Cowell and Thomas, p. 252) leaves no room for doubting che fact that according to the seventh century tradition & Sātavāhaua was the friend of Nagarjuna. The most glorious epoch in the history of the Andhra kingdom wa, inaugurated by the conquests of Gautamiputra Satakarni (A.D. 106-130), lord of Dakshiņā patba,' who restored the glory of the Sātavāhana race.' An inscription of Amaravati (Arclucological Survey of Southern India, Vol. I, p. 100, Lüders' List, No. 1248) is dated in the reign of the great Gautamiputra Sāta karui's successor, Våsishthiputra Sri-Pulumävi. According to Dr. Burgess this inscription indicates that in the reign of this monarch "or about the middle of the second century, the stūpu at Amarāvati was undergoing additions or embellishments."
If any reliance can be placed or the tradition relating to Nāgārjuna's connection with a Satavābann, as recorded by Indian and Chinese writers, and on the Tibetan tradition regarding his bnilding a railing of the stūpa at Dhanya kataka, the Sātavāhana in question should be identified with Väsishthīputra Puļumāvi. It was probably owing to the stimulus that Nāgārjuna gave to Buddhism in the Andhra country that the restoration of the glory of the Malāchaitya was undertaken by the Andhra people, among whom we come across a chāmār (chaimahira named Vidhika (Lüders' List, No. 1273). The fine sculptures of Amarāvati assignable to the Second centnry A.D. bear eloquent testimony to the piety and refinement of the Andhras of those days.
Perhaps the constructive period of the stūpa of Amarāvati came to a close in the third century A.D. Not long after the Andhra country, or at least the territory round the city of Dhānyakataka, passed into the hands of the Pallavas of Kāñchi. The Mayidavola copperplate inscription of the Yura-mahārāja Sivaskandavarman, issued from Kanchi, is addressed to the official at Dhamakada with regard to the gift of an Anchapatiya gāna, or a village in Andhrapatha (Liders' List, No. 1205). From the seventh century onward Dhānyakataka was probably included within the kingilom of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vēngi. Yuan Chwang's reference to the great Chaitya of Amaravati is ambiguous. But from inscriptions of the twelfth century we learn that the glory and the sanctity of the monument had not cven then decreased. An inscription on the sides of an octagonal pillar excavated at Amaravati by Mr. R. Sewell and arsigned by Dr. Hultzsch on palæographical grounds to abont A.D. 1100 (Epiyraphia Indica, X, p. 141) contains a dramatic account of the crection of a statue (?) of the Buddha at the holy place (kshētra), the town of Dhānyaghata, or Diāngagliataka, sacred to Vitarāga (South-Indian Inscriptions, I, p. 25). An inscription dated Saka-samvat 1104 (A.D. 1182), engraved on a pillar at the southern entrance to the central shrine of the Am resvara temple at Amaravati, opens with these stanzas :-"Om! There is a city (named) Sri-Dhányakataka, which is superior to the city of the gods, (and) where (the temple o!) Sambhu (Śiva) (named) Amarēśvara is worshipped by the lord of gods (Indra); where the god Buddhn, worshipped by the Creator, is quite close, (and) where there is a very
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1914, p. 318.
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