Epigraphia Indica Vol 19

Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 93

68
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIX.
much defaced and the features of the face and the ears are damaged. The turban is interlaced with a flower garland and we notice, above the forehead, a large round knot encircled with a garland and leaves. The inscription consists of two lines measuring 3' 71' and 31" respectively. The first line which begins immediately above the level of the right ear of the statue is preceded by a blank space of two inches to mark the commencement of the document. The inscription records that the bowl, on which it is engraved, was presented by Ayala, the son of Indrasama or Idrasama, at the hospice of the goldsmiths in honour of all the Buddhas for the acceptance of the acharyas, who were great preachers. The name Imdrasama may be construed as "equal to Indra" or it may stand for the Sanskrit Indrašarman. Another bowl similarly mounted on a wellpreserved female figure is now kept in the Fyzabad Museum. The bowl being described was presumably used for worship. Fa-Hian informs us that in his time the Buddha's bowl was worshipped in a monastery at Purushapura (modern Peshawar).1 There are in the Mathura Museum two or three other bowls of stone one of which (ht. 1' 11", diameter 2 1") is labelled a Mahāpätra' and must have been used for veneration as an imitation of the Buddha's alms-bowl. It is, however, noteworthy that a stone bowl unearthed by Sir John Marshall at Sāñchi bears & short inBoription to the effect that the bowl in question was used for the storage of the food, which, having first been presented to the deity, was afterwards distributed among the pilgrims.
TEXT. 1. Indrasama [or Idrasamal-pūtasa Ayalasa dana 8aVa-Būdhana pājāya Suvanakara-[vihārēj achariyana [ma]hópad[@]sakana 2. parigahe
TRANSLATION. "(This bowl is) the gift of Ayala, the son of Indrasama (or Idrasama) in the monastery of the goldsmiths for the adoration of all the Buddhas (and) for the acceptance of the teachers who were great preachers."
No. VII.-Stone channel inscription. This inscription is incised on one side of a stone fragment (length 11") which probably formed part of a stone channel for carrying off water. The fragment was found in the débris of a house which fell down in 1917 in the Mātā Gali lane of Mathurā city and was acquired for the Museum in August of the same year.
The inscription is complete at the top and at the bottom but broken off at both ends. A continuous translation of the document is not practicable. It is, however, manifest that it records the erection of something, possibly the channel itself, on a piece of which it is engraved, in inonastery designated Chutaka-vihára which may possibly be interpreted as Chatakavihāra, i.e., the mango monastery. The last line contains the year 91 which presumably is the date of the inscription. It should probably be referred to the Kushāna era. The pious act mentioned in the epigraph was executed for the increase of the religious piety and strength of the (Ma]hāsānghikas, one of the eighteen schools into which the Buddhist churoh was split up early in the history of that religion. Two aksharas at the end of the first line which may be read 28 ryāstā cannot at present be explained, though I am inclined to think that the word intended was vastavya.
1 Travels of Fa-Hian, translated by Legge, p. 34.
Annual Report of the Superintendent, A chæological Sur.ey. Hindu and Bud thist Monuments, Northern Circle, for the year ending 3186 March 1917, p. 8.
* See Sir John Marsball's Guide to Sanchi, p. 104, and Catalogue of the Museum of Archæology of Sanki, p. 37, No. B. 1.