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172 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXIX of the inscription says that a person named Mūlajapa presented three images for worship to (or installed them in a particular religious establishment. The name of the establishment is not specifically mentioned in the inscription apparently because the inscribed stone was in view in the temple which housed the images. The temple was probably situated in the modern Bhadrak area which is the findspot of our inscription. Unfortunately the deity or deities represented by the images have not been named and cannot therefore be determined. We know that there was a practice according to which the installation of one or more images of one or more deities would be promised by a person in distress with the hope that he would be relieved of the suffering. Numerous such images, styled děya-dharma or dēva-dharma in the records on later specimens, have been discovered. In the terminology of similar dedicatory inscriptions, the three images referred to in our record were the dėya-dharma or deva-dharma of Mūlajapa who installed them in a temple in the vicinity of Bhadrak within the dominions of Mahārāja sri-Gaņa in the eighth year of the latter's reign.
In regard to the reading of the second half of line 1, we have to admit that, since this part follows the regnal year, it is tempting to take pa (read pë) before the traces of a damaged sign (tentatively read na) as a contraction of pakshe and dava (read dēvā) before 3 as meant for divasë. In that case, however, we should expect immediately before pa the name of one of the seasons (viz. grishma, varsha and hemanta) or less probably that of a month. But the reading müla is fairly certain, although the sign read as ja may possibly also be 3. Unfortunately it is difficult to make out here the name of a season or month inspite of the fact that one of the twenty seven nakshatras bears the name Müla. The name Jyēshthamula is sometimes applied to Jyështha ; but mula is never used as the name of a month.
Line 2 of the inscription begins with vapa 80. Before this, there are traces of a letter partially broken away along with a piece of stone. Judging from the beginning of the first line of the record, marked by the traces of the siddham symbol, it is apparent that one or two letters have been completely broken away at the beginning of the second line. A word ending in vapa and followed by a number would suggest an expression like kulyavāpa, khärivāpa, dronavāpa, ādhavāpa or nālikāvāpa all of which were the names of some of the different land-measures of ancient India. Thus the section no doubt refers to eighty measures of land which was apparently granted by Mulajapa in favour of the temple for the continuation of the worship of the three deities installed by him therein. The partially broken letter before vapa cannot be satisfactorily, read; but it may be a damaged dha. In that case the reading intended may be adhavāpa.
The rest of the second line of the inscription reads: Mah[ā]kulapati-ayya-Agisamēna Pānide vadidań padichhidań. Padichhida is the same as Pali patichchhita meaning 'accepted,' while vadida seems to be the same as Sanskrit vatita meaning 'an apportionment', i.e., an apportioned piece of land in the present case. The sentence thus indicates that the eighty measures of land referred to were apportioned in a locality called Pānida and that the land was accepted by Mahakula pati-ārya Agnisarman apparently on behalf of the temple or religious establishment in question. Agniśarman was probably the head of the establishment or less probably the priest in charge of the temple. The epithets arya, 'venerable', and Mahākulapati point to his high rank. The expression kulapati, which usually means the head or chief of a family, also indicates a sage who feeds and teaches ten thousand pupils.
The letters of the first half of line 3 are either completely or partially broken away. The first five or six aksharas are lost, while only the vowel-marks of the following two aksharas (medial i
[It looks more like ha.-B.C.C.] See Apto, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, s.v.
