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No. 31-BRAHMI INSCRIPTION FROM KAILVAN
(1 Plate)
D. C. SIROAR, OOTACAMUND Sometime in the year 1954, Mr. C. 8. Upasak of the Pali Institute at Nalanda, near Biharsharif in the Patna District of Bihar, sent me a photograph and an impression of a Brāhmi inscription for examination. The epigraph was etated to have been engraved on the brim of a stone Vossel preserved in the house of one Mohan Lal Singh, an old oultivator of Hasanpur, P. O. Kailvan, District Patna. The vessel was discovered by him in the course of ploughing a field in front of a mosque and a Darcal in the village of Kailvan about half a mile away. As the material received from Mr. Upasak was not quite satisfactory for the decipherment of the whole record, I visited Hasanpur for an examination of the inscribed vessel on the 6th of January 1956.
The adjacent villages of Hasanpur and Kailvan lie within the jurisdiction of the Bakhtiarpur Police Station in the Barh Subdivision of the Patna District. They are about 3 miles from Belchi which is about 6 miles from the Harnaut station on the Bihar-Bakhtiarpur Light Railway. A mosque and a Dargah near the findspot of the inscription at Kailvan appeared to me to have been built on the ruins of certain older structures. Ancient bricks measuring about 14" X 91" x 21" were found lying here and there in the neighbourhood.
The vessel, made of Chunar sandstone, weighs 4560 tolas (1 maund and 17 seers). The circumference of the outer edge of its brim, which is 21" wide, is 5' 3". The height of the vessel is 91" and the diameter of its open face is 1' 31'. Although the brim bearing the inscription is rather rubbed out and rough, the outer side of the vessel still bears traces of the original Mauryan polish which once beautified it. We know of an inscribed Mauryan stone bowl from Sanchi.!
The inscription runs along the whole face of the brim of the vessel, although there are four symbols between the beginning and end of the circular line of writing. The first of these symbols looks like a water-pot with a long neck resembling a modern sorāhi, which, however, does not resemble the auspicious pürna-lumbha as represented generally in Indian art. The second symbol is difficult to identify while the third is a double svastika. The fourth symbol looks like a damaru with the two strings fastened to its middle and the guţikās tied to their ends longer than usual. Since the damaru is generally associated with Siva, this object may refer to the Saiva association of the inscription under study.
The characters are Brāhmi of about the first or second century A.D. The letters v and m have an angular shape with a horizontal base. D and ch resemble the forms of these letters in the insoriptions of the Kushānas. The top of some of the letters is thick and looks like a clear serif, The language is a mixture of Sangkrit and Prakrit as in most of the inscriptions of the Kushāņas. A peculiarity of the orthography is the use of & for 8 in savachhare (Sanskrit samvatsare).
1 See Marsball and Foucher, The Monuments of Sanchi, Vol. I, pp. 55, 381 ; cf. p. 82.
Cf. Mem, ASI, No. 71, Plate XI B; JRASB, Letters, Vol. XI, 1945, Plate facing p. 9; Allan, Cat. (Anc. Ind.), pp. cl, 167-68, 272-73, 309, etc.
. It may be a yüpa with a wooden yapa-kataka of the shape of & damaru at the top. Cf. Sabdakalpadruma, 8.V. yü pa-kafaka. If this identifioation is accepted, it may refer to the Brahmanical association of the record. Dr. V. S. Agrawala drew my attention to a similar symbol on ancient Indian coins (cf. Allan, op. cit., pp. xxxiii, Ixili, 52-53, 300). For the representation of a drmare side by side with a pürm-kumbha, see A. R. Ep., 1953-54, Plate facing p. 20. Or docs our figure represent a yajña-védi along with a yüpa ? Macron over e and o has not been used in this article.
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