Book Title: Epigraphia Indica Vol 24
Author(s): Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

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Page 245
________________ 202 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA. [VOL. XXIV. timă Vadhamanasya), No. 119 (pratima pratishthāpita Vardha)mänasya) and apparently in No. 68 quoted above. It is therefore not only possible, but even more likely that Tošāye patima means the image of Toba'. Unfortunately the upper half of the statue is lost, and what remains of it is not sufficient to determine exactly the character of the person represented. All that can be said is that it is a woman as shown by the anklets and that she wears a folded cloth with one end tucked up in the waist-belt and the other slung over the left arm. This seems to have been the costume of a fashionable lady of that time. Exactly the same dress is worn by the female wor. shippers on a doorjamb in the Mathura Museum (P2); cf. especially the figure in the upper compartment. There is absolutely nothing to show that the statue was meant for a goddess or a Yakshi or a Näga woman. Nor do we know of any goddess of the name of Tobā. Now, oonsidering that the image which according to the inscription probably represents a lady called Tosa has been found together with the remnants of three statues which probably are mentioned in the well inscription as having been set up in the stone house of Toshā, we can hardly reject the idea that Tobā and Toshă refer to the same person. The difference in the spelling of the name cannot be regarded as a serious obstacle to the identification as the name appears to be of foreign origin and, moreover, we have even in Sanskrit külma by the side of küshma, kosha by the side of kosa, etc. There can be no doubt that the well inscription is about a century older than the statue inscription; it shows the archaic' writing that is found in all other records of the time of Sodása, whereas the statue inscription is dated in the reign of Kanishka and written in the typical clumsy characters of that period. As Toba cannot have set up a statue during the reign of Kanishka, if her shrine was already in existence at the time of Sodāsa, the identification of Toáā and Toshi would definitely prove that Tofaye patimă means the image of Toba'. On the other hand, we should be compelled to assume that somebody erected the statue of Tosk at her shrine about a hundred years after her death. Such a posthumous honouring by one of her descendants would not born to be impossible, if we remember that probably a statue of Vima Kadphises was set up at Mat some time after his death, but I admit that the evidence for the identity of Toba and Tosha is not much more than a chain of possibilities or probabilities that requires substantial strengthening before it can be regarded as conclusive. The second line of the inscription affords no help in this respect. Mäthuri kalavada probably means the wife of the kälavāda ot Mathurā', although the formation of the second word is unusual. In analogy to such derivations as sārthavähini from sārthavāha, we should expect rather külavadini. As will appear from the following two inscriptions, kälavada or kalaväļa was the title of a high official at Mathura. Owing to the large lacuna of the text in the beginning of the third line, it is impossible to decide whether Mathuri kalavadā refers to the person who erected the statue of Tobā or to Tosi herself. Nor can I suggest anything with regard to the meaning of the following three syllables which I have tentatively read odakhi. III.-Inscription on a sculptured stono-slab from Mathura. This inscription is engraved on a sculptured stone-slab from the Kankal TIA at Mathura, now preserved in the Lucknow Provincial Museum. The slab is figured in V. A. Smith's Jain Stepa at Mathurd (ASI. New Imp. Ser. Vol. XX), Plate XIII. The inscription was edited by Buhler, Ep. Ind., Vol. I, p. 396, No. 33, and Plate, and commented on ibid. p. 393f. Ileet made it the subject of a learned paper, JRAS. 1905, pp. 635-655, and R. D. Banerji treated it briefly, Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVII, p. 49. Vogel, Cat. Arch. Mw. Mathurd, p. 173, and Plate IIb; Soulpture de Mathura, Plate XXIIb.

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