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No. 39.)
KALAWAN COPPER-PLATE INSCRIPTION OF THE YEAR 134.
253
is designated as rathanikama, Skr. räsktrarigama, which seems to mean a country-town or market town, and can hardly denote the capital.
According to the Rāmāyana, Takshasilá was founded by Bharata as the residence of his son Taksha, but Buddhist sources show that the first part of the name was felt to be derived from the base taksk, to chop, cut off. According to the 22nd avadana of the Divyāvadāna the town was formerly called Bhadraśila, and in one of his jātis the Buddha was born as Chandraprabha, king of Bhadrasala, and as such cut off his own head and gave it to a needy Brāhman. In the Aramaic inscription found at Taxila the name has been translated with naggārūgā, i.e., according to the late Professor Andreas, " carpenter's craft," as if the roal form were Takshafila. A prior it is quite possible that Takshaselā means " carpenter's rock", or "chop rock", "a detached rock". And the new name Chhadasilā seems to support the latter explanation. For its first part, chhada, can very well correspond to Sanskrit chhatā, mass, lump, a continuous streak. The Margalla hills, on which Chhadasila was situated, form a continuous range, while the Takshasila ridge consists of several more or less detached hills. Chhadaśilā can accordingly mean a place situated on a massy ridge, and Taksbasilă a town on or below a detached hill. The name occurs as Ch'o-to-she-lo in v. 33 of Sanghavarman's Chinese translation of the Mahāmāyūri (A.D. 516), which Professor Lévi' wants to restore as Chhardaśaila.
In establishing the relics Chandrabhi was associated with her brother Nandivardhana, her sons Sama and Saita (i.e., perhaps Sanskrit Sachitta), her daughter Dharma, her daughters-inlaw Rajā and Indri, her grandson Jivanandin, and her teacher. We may note that Dharma's granddaughter was called Dharmā, and that the element nandin is found both in the name of Nandivardhana and in that of his sister's grandson Jivanandin.
The text has in 1. 4. avariena ya, which can only mean and (with) her acharya'. It is. however, possible that the original draft had ayariana sarcastivaana parigrahe, in the acceptance of the Sarvästivāda teachers; cf. acharyana sarvastivadana parigrahammi on the Kurram, and acharyana sarvastivatina pratigrahe on the Kanishka casket. But also the Lion Capital has sarvastivat(r)ana parigrahe, without ayariana, and the text as it stands gives good sense.
The final portion of the record contains a blessing on the rathani kama, Sanskrit räshţranigama, evidently Chhadasila, and on all beings, terminating in the wish for Nirvana, as in the silver scroll.
The inscription is dated samvatsaraye 134 ajasa Sravanasa masasa divase trevise-23, in the year 134... on the twenty-third-23 , day of the month Srāvana, i.e., it is about two years older than the silver scroll of the year 136, for the shape of the letters clearly shows that the same era is used in both records.
The crucial word in this date is the genitive ajasa preceding the name of the month, and it is clear that this ajasa is identical with the genitive ayasa preceding ashadasa in the silver scroll.
In my edition of the latter in the Corpus, I have discussed the various explanations given of this word, and proposed to explain it as corresponding to Sanskrit adyasya and as characterizing the month as the "first" Asbādha because there was, in that particular year, a second, interealary, Ashādha. This being the only inscription of the older series of Kharoshthi records containing any clue to a scientific calculation of the era, I sought the co-operation of the well-known Dutoh soholar Dr. van Wijk, who was good enough to investigate the matter, whereafter I made his ealoulations the basis of the chronological system proposed as a working hypothesis in the introduotion.
1 VII, 101, 10 f., cf. Raghuvamba, xv, 89. • Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften su aoningen, Philologisch Historische Klasse, 1931.
p. 13.
J.A., XI, v, 1015, p. 39.
