Epigraphia Indica Vol 16

Author(s): F W Thomas, H Krishna Sastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 37

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVI.
shape of the aksharas ma and sa. On account of the script it is out of the question that any other known era can have been used here.
The chronological question having thus been satisfactorily settled, we must turn our attention to the word following the date, which I read vaiyabṛityakara. It will be noticed that the four aksharas brityakara are perfectly plain. The akshara preceding bri has the appearance of a ligature of which the second component is ya; it may perhaps be read ya. Between this character and the figure indicating the day there is an open space; apparently one or two aksharas have been effaced. Now as the word under discussion is immediately followed by the donor's name Buddhadasa, there can be little doubt that the syllable vai has been lost and that we are justified in reading vaiyabṛityakara. This term occars in Sanskrit writings of the Buddhists in the two forms vaiyavṛrityakara and vaiyapṛityakara, the latter being the correct one. The word corresponds to the Pali veyyavachchakara, meaning "one who does business or executes a commission for another, an agent." I suspect, however, that in the Shorkot inscription it has a more restricted meaning and may denote some functionary-either bhikshu or upasaka-in connection with a Buddhist monastery. I am led to this assumption not only by the position of the word in the inscription, but also by the connection in which it occurs in the Mahavyutpatti, where it immediately follows navakarmika. As I am unable to define its meaning more precisely, I have chosen in my version of the inscription to leave it untranslated.
A point of special interest for the topography of the Panjab is the mention of Sibipura, from which we may infer that the mound of Shorkot marks the site of the capital of the Sibis, a well-known tribe of ancient India. The Sibi raja who bestowed his eyes upon a blind Brahman and gave away his own flesh to ransom a dove from a hawk is celebrated as the paragon of charity and self-sacrifice in both Brahmanical and Buddhist legend. The Sibi tribe is repeatedly mentioned in the Mahabharata; but these references do not enable us to decide on the geographical position which they occupied beyond that they lived somewhere in the western region. In the course of the conquest of the world (dig-vijaya) ascribed to the Pandavas it is related that Nakula, the fourth of the five brothers, while engaged in subduing the western region, overcame the Sibi, Trigarta, Ambashṭha, Malava and Panchakarpata. It should be remembered that the Trigarta country corresponds to the Kangra Valley.
A famous episodes of the great epic relates how Jayadratha, the king of Sindhu, attempts to carry off Draupadi, the common spouse of the five Panda vas. Here the Sibis are mentioned as a tribe dependent on Sindhu.
Among the tribes of the Panjab subdued by Alexander, the Greek authors mention the Siboi, in whom Lassen has recognized the Sibi of Indian literature. Owing to the circumstance that they were armed with maces and wore skins of animals for clothing, the Greeks took them to be descendants of Herakles and his companions.. Arrian somewhat vaguely locates them in the country between the Indus and Akesines (i.e. the Chandrabhaga or Chinab);
1 Santideva's Sikshasamuchchaya (ed. Bendall), p. 55; Divyavadana (ed. Cowell and Neil), pp. 54 and 347; Mahavyutpatti (ed. Minayeff), Bibl. Buddh., XIII, 270, 22. For vaiyavṛitya cf. Avadanatataka (ed. Speyer), Vol. I, p. 260, II, pp 9, 13, 96.
2 R. C. Childers, Diet. of the Pali Language, s.v. veyyavachcham, "service or duty performed by an inferior for a superior." Cf. also Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 84. "The function of a proxy or agent, Veyavachchakara, may be held by an inmate of the monastery (ārāmika) or a layman."
This term occurs in several inscriptions from the North-West of India.
M. B., II, 1189 (- Bombay ed. 11, 32, 7).
M. Bh., III, 15626 (Bombay ed. III, 266, 11), and III, 15718 (- Bombay ed. III, 271, 8)..
Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde, Vol. I, p. 644, and II, p. 168. Vincent A. Smith, Early History, 3rd ed., sketch map facing p. 94, locates the Sibi in the Doab of the Hydaspes and Hydraotis (i.e. the Iravati, modern Rāvi).