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No. 30] NAGARJUNIKONDA INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF ABHIRA
201 VASUSHENA, YEAR 30 or clan. This person describes himself as one who would not spare even his life in the cause of a Brāhmaṇa and a friend and also as the host and friend of all, as one having the virtues of gratitude and truthfulness, as the vanquisher of the hosts of enemies, as a straight-forward person, as one engaged in planting banyan tiees apparently on the roads for the purpose of offering shade to men and animals and as one who was a friend of pious and righteous people.
The above section of the inscription is followed by another sentence stating that Amātya (minister or counsellor) Tishyaśarinan of the Bharadvaja götre composed the record under study by dint of divine power. Tishyasarman appears to have been an officer of the Abhira king Vasushēna. It is diflicult to say why the engraver of our record was the subject of so much praise. Was it because he was responsible for fashioning the image of Ashtabhujasvāmin ?
The inscription ends with the prayer for the welfare of herds of cows. Such benedictions are sometimes found at the end of early Brahmanical epigraphs, especially Vaishnava records in which the word Brāhmara, prajă, etc., are often added to the word go. It is well known that the god Vishnu-Nārāyana is especially associated with the conception of go-Brāhmaṇa-hita, 'the welfare of the cows and the Brāhmaṇas."
The most important historical information supplied by the inscription is in the referenco to the reign of the Abhira king Vasushēņa. As regards the history of the Guntur District, we know that the Ikshvākus held sway over the area from the second quarter of the third century A.D. down to the early part of the fourth and that the Pallavas of Käñohi occupied the area before the middle of the fourth century. Abhira Vagushēna's rule of thirty years in the Nāgārjunikonda valley in the same age cannot be reconciled with these facts. This raises the question whether the year should be referred to an era. It also appears that Vasushēma was ruling elsewhere and that his hold over the Nāgārjunikonda area was short-lived. It is wellknown that the Abhiras were ruling over the region around Nasik and the adjoining areas of Western India (roughly the Konkau and Northern Maharashtra) und that the Abhira king Mäthariputra Isvarasēna of a Nasik inscription of his ninth regnal year probably founded the era of 248 A. D. Väsisbţhiputra Vasushēna of our inscription was very probably a descendant of Mathariputra Isvarasēna, both having metronymics and sēna(shëna)-ending names. If then the year 30 of our inscription is referred to the said era, the date would correspond to 278 A. D. If such was the case, Vasushēņa subdued the Ikshvākus and his rule was acknowledged in the Nāgārjunikonda area for a short time in the eighth decade of the third century probably between the reign of Virapurushadatta and that of the latter's son. As regards the relations of the Ikshvākus with the Western regions of India, we know that they were matrimonially allied with the Sakas of Ujjayini who were the neighbours of the Abhiras. The close relation between the Ikshvāku and Saka kingdoms is further indicated by the discovery of a big hoard of Saka coins at Petluripalem in the Guntur District not far from Vijayapuri in the Nagarjunikonda valley, which was the capital of the Ikshvākus.
Cf. Select Inscriptions, pp. 327, 397 (svastyrastu go-Brahmana-purögäbhyah sarva-prajābhyah); p. 441 (svasty= astu go-Brühmava-lekkaka-vachaka-Grötfibhyah); p. 455 (ovasti prajabhyah); elc.
2 Cf. Mahabharata, XII, 47, 94 : Namo Brahmanyadevaya 98-Brahmana-kitaya cha jugad-dhitäya Krishnaya Govindaya namo namah
• Above, Vol. XXXII, pp. 88-89. * See The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 222 ; cf. Rapson, Catalogue of Indian Coins, pp. Ixii-xiii,
Soe above, p. 21; The Successors of the Salavahanas, pp. 22-23. • Seo A. R. Ep., 1956-57, pp. 218,
