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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII.
No. 20.-THREE BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS FROM KOSAM.
BY DAYA RAM SAANI, M.A., Rar BAHADUR.
The three inscriptions discussed in this paper were discovered by me in the cold weather of 1921-22 when I was engaged on the preliminary operations connected with the re-erection of the ancient pillar in the ruined fort at Kosam', District Allahabad. These inscriptions were found in the villages in the vicinity of Koram and I am glad to say that at my request the owners have presented all the three records to the Archæological Department and they have been placed as exhibits on loan in the Provincial Museum at Lucknow. Along with these inscriptions I was fortunate enough to bring to light a fourth inscription of the time of king Jayachchandra of Kanauj which furnishes final corroboration of General Cunningham's identification of the remains at Kosam with the ancient city of Kausi mbi. This inscription is being dealt with in a separate article.
The impressions reproduced in this paper have been supplied by Mr. Prayag Dayal, Curator, Provincial Museum, Lucknow.
Inscription No. I. This epigraph is incised ou & stone slab measuring 2' 10% high, l' wide and 2!" in thickness. The stone was fixed in the parapet of a well in the village of Masharfa situated about a mile and a half to the north-west of the stone pillar at Kosam. The inscription is engraved on the front face of the slab and consists of fourteen lines. Each line consists of five to seven aksharas except the last line which probably contained only three characters, now mostly defaced. For the rest, the epigraph is in an excellent state of preservation. The inscription is written in Brahmi characters which closely resemble the alphabet used in the inscriptions of the Mahakshatrapa Sodása, like which it is drawn up throughout in pure Prakrit. The inscription is not dated, nor does it mention the name of the ruler of the time. The object of the document is to record the erection of a stone railing (vēdikā) by a certain householder named Gotiputa, son of Kusa pala and grandson of Vâri who was a caravanmerchant and a votary of Manibhadra. The inscription begins with a salutation to a certain Bhagavat whose name unfortunately is not given and ends with the wish that "the deity may be pleased ". Here too, unfortunately, the name of the deity is not given or, if it was, it has been destroyed in the last line of the inscription. The traces left on the stone, however, seem to favour the reading 'Bhagava'. We are thus left to guess the identity of this god. I am inclined to think that it was the Yaksha Manibhadra, the favourite deity of the grandfather of the donor. We know from other records that this deity enjoyed extensive worship in ancient times. The inscription is silent as to the purpose for which the stone balustrade mentioned in it was intended. Probably it surrounded some sacred monument such as an image of the deity Manibhadra, a pillar, a chaitya or some sacred tree. The stone on
1 The visiblo antiquities of Kosam have been described by several scholars :--Cunningham, Archeological Survey Reports, Vol. I, pp. 301-815; F. E. Pargiter, Two Recorde on the pillar at Kosam in Ep. Ind., Vol. XI. Pp. 87 ff; R. D. Banerji, Some Soulptures from Kosam in the 4. S. R., 1913-14, part II, pp. 262-264 ; and the Annual Report of the Superintendent, Archeological Survey, Hinda and Buddhist Monuments, Northern Circle, for the year ending 31st March 1917, p. 18.
· Cf. M'emoirs, 4. 6. 1., No. 6, PI, XXVI, 6 and Ep. Ind. Vol. II, p. 199, No. II and plate and other inscriptior.
Vide 4. 8. R., 1916-16, Pt. II, pp. 104 ff. and Mr. Ramaprasad Chanda's Paper entitled Four Ancient Yakala Statues published in the University of Calcutta, Anthropological Papers, No. 8. [For the dhyana of Mapibhadra e Vishudharmõttariyas III, 78.18.-Ed.)
• Ct. Diya kho cha karita " the rail pattern and the ya kaha have been on sed to be made" engraved above the image of a yakawa in Cave No. 18 at Nasik (Ep. Ind., Vol. VIII, p. 93, No. 2.
