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334
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[Vol. xxv.
TRANSLATION. Success!
(V.1) Who had formerly remained the Lord of Gods for seven terms without intermission; who attained birth in a highly noble and immensely prosperous family of mortals; who, being possessed of unbounded speed, .............. the brilliancy of gold; who turned a recluse, forsaking (his wife) Kāpilēyā of golden form;
(V.2) Other deities in paying reverence to whom-his heart going out to the distressed and the desolate--vie with one another; and who revered Lord Jina (the Buddha) with devotion; and further, on whom Sugata (the Buddha), while entering nirvana, bestowed his samhäţika and the rest; and who, being an exponent of the Buddhist doctrines, expounded the Law;
(V.3) Who, after having assumed his (human) form solely for the sake of (delivering the mortal) beings, entered nirvana on the charming hill of Gurupāda; the very same Kāøyapa shines forth here.
No. 36.-A BRONZE IMAGE INSCRIPTION FROM NALANDA.
By A. Ghosh, M.A., PATNA. The following inscription is engraved on the back of a bronze image of Balarama, excavated in 1917-18 out of the northern verandah of Monastery Site No. 1 at Nāland. The image is now in the Archæological Museum at Nälandā and bears the register number 8. 1.442.
The characters of the inscription belong to the eastern variety and may be ascribed to the ninth century A.D.; they have much similarity with those of the Nālandă copper-plate of Dēvapāla. In fact, the inscription may well belong to the reign of the Pāla king Dēvapāla (c. A.D. 815-854), who is mentioned in the text of the inscription. As is common in the inscriptions of this age, the medial é is written both as a superscript oblique line and as a short stroke attached to the left limb of the respective letter. The medial o is denoted by a combination of both these signs. There are some obvious grammatical and orthographical mistakes in the inscription.
The inscription records the dedication of the image at Nalanda in the Dévapāladēvahatta, or the mart of Dēvapāladēva', by Nisingha(?)kā, the wife (?) of Sõujjēka. There is epigraphic evidence of the existence of other hattas at Nalanda ; for example, the inscription on a stone image of Avalokitēšvara, now housed in the modern Sürya temple at Bargaon near the excavated site of Nalanda, contains a reference to a tala-hata, the meaning of which is not clear.
1 This rendering may now be accepted as exact. After I had prepared this essay, I chanced to read pamage, in a similar context, in Maha Kassapa's account given by Dr. G. P. Malalasekera in his Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names (Vol. II, p. 481), which has confirmed the above explanation. The passage in question reads: Owing to his great saintliness, even the gods vied with each other to give alms to Kassape."
Above, Vol. XVII, p. 310.
* The inscription, which is still unpublished, seems to read as follows :-siddham (oxprossed by a symbol) fri-Nalanda talahataki de[ya*]dharmo='yan Saudamūké óri(t)-Va-putrinah |
