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No. 25) AN INSCRIBED POT AND OTHER BUDDHIST REMAINS IN SALIHUNDAM 133 2 punya[nā']m-parirakshan-ārttham-aja'ran=tasyā gatāyä' [di]óvam pritya Sailum-identa
svayam(ya)n=nfipati[nā) samosthăpitan ch[aityakam?) [ll").
TRANSLATION Hail! This funereal memorial in stone has been installed by the king himself-the king bearing the illustrious appellation Pu..., out of affection for his (beloved) queen Hâlidēvi who having won the heart of) her lord by her noble character, repaired to heaven before the advent of old age, to guard (assiduously, as it were,) the (aucumulated trensure of her) religious merits.
No. 25-AN INSCRIBED POT AND OTHER BUDDHIST REMAINS IN SALIHUNDAM
(4 Plates and 1 text figure) T. N. RAMACHANDRAN, CALCUTTA
The latest accessions to our knowledge of the schools of Buddhist art, architecture and iconography in general and of South Indian epigraphy in particular have been contributed by the discovery in Andhra-dēša, of a number of Buddhist sculptures, stúpas or mahāchaityas, chaityas or prayer-cells or halls and vihāras or monasteries, dug up at Nagarjunakonda in the Guntur District, Käpavaram and Adurru in the East Godavari District, and Salihundām, Sankarám and Ramatirtham in the Vizagapatam District 10 On the hill at Salihundām, overlooking the river Varsadhari and the Bay of Bengal, 3 miles further down, was discovered a curious but very interesting monastic orientation (plates I and II) with a high apsidal chaitya on the summit of the hill crowning the hill, as it were (plate I-c), a circular or wheel-like mahāchaitya behind it with bricks laid flat on its entire surface instead of the usual, spokes and hub arrangement that one meets with in the Andhra stūpas (plates I-a, b, plate III-a), and with the regular monastery and smaller chaityas, two of them Buddha-chaityas and votive stūpas scattered on the sides and slopes of the hill (plate II).As at Maināmati (Madanăvati) and Lälmål in East Bengal, where the author of this article had to save a large and rich siteli from Military depredation and spoliation, the discoveries here are the results of a hurried survey and excavation by the author necessitated by
1 This akshara is lost; but it must be without doubt nd. * The akahara ja is not properly engraved.
. There are dota, one above the lottor ga and another towards left above y. If those are construed as mis placed ansvaras of syå And ya, the reading would be tasya rin gatayin. This can be taken as a clase in wak na plami and will yield quite a good sense. But it is better to take these dots as only flaws in the stone, for tho anusviras proper are bigger and circular; cf., om=idah and orarth in the same line.
• The letter di is damaged and not sufficiently clear. But it can be restored with confidence.
The letter nd is lost; but it can be confidently restored. • The annsvara of eam appears to have been wrongly placed above the next akshara stha.
The second akshara of this word is partly preserved and the last one is restored suitably. . It is not unlikely that the name of the king was simply Kamadeva and the componer elaborately parapl. rased it as Pushpayudha to make it more poetic and for the convenience of metre.
A brief reference to the finds at Salihundam was made by the writer in his Presidential address to the Archaeology Section of the 13th Session of the All-Indin Oriental Conference, October 1946, p. 14 and in his addrese at the Silver Jubilee Session of the Andhra Historical Research Society, Rajahmundry, April 148, p. 31. Mr. A. H. Longhurst has described the Buddhist ruins of Salihundam in the Annual Report of the Archaeological Department, Southern Circle, Madras, for the year 1919-20, pp. 34-38. The site has already yielded some inscriptions of about the 7th or 8th century A.C. (Nos. 338-342 of the Madras Epigraphical collection of 1910). The onekets, etc., described in the present article are, however, subsequent coveries...Ed.]
1. grlihupd&m is now included in the Srikakulam (Chicacole) Taluk of the district of the same name. H B.C. Law Volume, part II, Poona, 1946, pp. 213-231.
