Epigraphia Indica Vol 20

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

Page 20

No. 1.]
PRAKRIT INSCRIPTIONS FROM NAGARJUNIKONDA.
The latter part of inscription F enumerates the various pious foundations-several of' them evidently additions to existing buildings-dedicated by Bodhisiri, and mentions, moreover, the localities at which each of them was found. It is a point of considerable importance that this list includes "a stone mandapa at the eastern gate of the Mahachetiya at Kantakasela." Evidently this locality Kantakasela (Skt. Kantakasaila, lit. "Thorn-hill") must be identical with "the emporium Kantikossúla" which Ptolemy mentions (VII, 1. 15) immediately after "the mouths of the Maisolos." It follows that the river known to the Greeks under the name Maisolos has been rightly supposed to be the Kistna. The country watered by the lower Kistna is consequently called Maisōlia by Ptolemy. The Periplus speaks (§62) of "the region of Masalia stretching a great way along the coast before the inland country," and adds that "a great quantity of muslins is made here." The ancient name by which this part of Southern India was known to the Greeks is preserved in that of the town Masulipatam.
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We are perhaps justified in identifying it with the country which Hiuen Tsiang describes under the name of T'o-na-kie-tse-kia. This seems to correspond to Dhaññakaṭaka, Dhanakataka (Skt. Dhanyakaṭaka), found in two inscriptions from Amaravati. The country in question the Chinese pilgrim locates between the Andhra country and that of the Cholas, the latter being situated at a distance of some 1,000 li to the south-west. In the course of his description he says: "The convents are numerous, but are mostly deserted and ruined; of those preserved there are about twenty with 1,000 or so priests. They all study the law of the Great Vehicle.".
Hiuen Tsiang further relates that to the east of the capital on a mountain there stood a convent called Purvasilä and on a mountain to the west was another, called Avarasila. Perhaps it would be preferable to render the names of these two monasteries by Purvasaila and Avarasaila, the Sanskrit word for a mountain being saila, whereas sila means "stone." Now, it is worthy of note that among the localities mentioned in inscription F, we meet with the name Puvasela, which is clearly a Prakrit form corresponding to Sanskrit Púrvaśaila. A name, meaning "Eastern Mountain or Hill," may, of course, have been used at different places of India. But it is a point worth considering whether the remains of Nagarjunikonda can possibly represent the ancient capital of Dhaññakaṭaka, which archeologists have sought both at Dharanikōta near Amaravati and at Bezwādā.
Another point of interest is the mention of Siripavata (i.e., Siripavvata) in inscription F. The Prakrit word corresponds to Sanskrit Sriparvata. Now, there is a tradition preserved in Tibet that Nagarjuna spent the concluding part of his life in a monastery of that name in Southern India. If this convent is the same as the "vihara on the Siripavata to the east of Vijayapuri" of our inscription, it would follow that the association of the great divine of the Mahāyāna with this locality has been preserved up to the present day in the name Nagarjunikonda. We may confidently hope that these and other questions of great import will be finally settled by further systematic excavations.
Among the religious foundations enumerated in F, we wish to draw attention to the two monasteries, called Kulaha-vihara and Sihala-vihāra. The former appears to have owed its existence to the same noble family which is mentioned in one of the ayaka-pillar inscriptions (B 4)
1 E. H. Warmington, The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India, Cambridge 1928, p. 116. Si-yu-ki, transl. by S. Beal, Vol. II, pp. 221 ff.; Thomas Watters, On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, Vol. II, pp. 214 ff.
Prof. Lüders' List, Nos. 1225 and 1271. The form Dhamakada occurs in the Mayida võlu copper-plate grant of the Pallava Yuvamaharaja Sivaskandavarman.
W. Wassiljew, Der Buddhismus, Vol. I, pp. 220 1.