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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XXXIV
It may be argued that Vasusheņa paid a visit to the Ikshvaku capital as a freind and relative of the contemporary Ikshvāku king Virapurushadatta' and it was his servants who were responsible for the installation of the deity. But, in such a case, we have to assume that persons from various places, such as the Nagarjunikonda region, Avanti, Sañjayapura and Vanavasa were all in his service and came to the Nagarjunikonda valley in his company. If the passage sthānato-pi na chalito means that the people responsible for the installation of the image of the god Ashṭabhujasvamin on the Seta-giri belonged to a party of the conquerors of the land and that they showed special consideration for the god, it cannot be reconciled with the above view. Another possible argument may be that Vasushēņa occupied the Nagarjunikonda valley at the time when the Ikshvākus were struggling for their existence with the Pallavas of Käñchi in the early part of the fourth century as an ally of the latter. But the year 30, when the record was engraved, should in this case have to be referred to Vasushena's regnal reckoning and not to the era of 248 A.D., generally assigned to the Abhiras. If, however, the era was really started by the Abhiras, it is difficult to explain away its absence in an Abhira record as the one under study. In any case, the circumstances leading to the acknowledgement of Abhira suzerainty in the Nagarjunikonda valley 'cannot be satisfactorily determined without further light on the subject. But, in the present state of our knowledge, it is probably better to suggest that the Abhira king Vasushena of the Nasik region extended his sway over the Ikshvāku kingdom in the Krishna-Guntur area for a short time about 278 A.D. The internal evidence of our inscription seems to preclude the possibility of its being a pilgrims' record in which the ruler of a distant land having little to do with the place of pilgrimage could probably have been mentioned.
The location of the geographical names mentioned in the inscription has been discussed above. As already indicated, one of them, viz. Muḍērā, cannot be satisfactorily identified. If Mahāgrama is the name of a place, it was probably situated in the region around Nagarjunikonda.
TEXT
Siddham ||
1 namo bhagavato deva-parama-dēvasya purana-purushasya Narayanasya [*] ra(ra)jão Vāsē(si)shthi-putrasya Abhirasya Vasushēnasya sa[m]vatsara(re) [30] va-pä' [7]
2 [djivasa(e) 1 mash]āgrāmikēns(pa) ma[hā]talavar[ēna(ṇa)] mahādarbḍanāyaka(kö)na Kausika[salgötrina(pa) Péribiḍēkāpāṁ(näth) Sivasibina Sarhjayapur[1]pa-Yorjibbi[*]*
1 Cf. above, Vol. XXVIII, p. 15; cf. Vol. XXVI, p. 53.
If the Abhiras were the allies of the Pallavas in the early part of the fourth century A.D., this fact may explain the struggle of Mayaraéarman, who founded the Kadamba kingdom about the middle of that century, with both the Pallavas and Abhiras apparently in the earlier part of his career.
See above, Vol. XXXI, pp. 100-01; Vol. XXXIII, pp. 103 ff.; cf. Vol. XXX, p. 22, note 5. From impressions.
Sanskrit siddham || namo bhagavate déva-parama-devāya purāna-purushaya Nārāyaṇāya. The first word is engraved in the left margin near the beginning of lines 1-2. The punctuation is nd'cate b a double danda followed by a slanting stroke.
This is a contraction of Prakrit Vasa-pakhe Vassa-pakkhe-Sanskrit varsha-pakshe
Sanskrit bepena.
As indicated above, this may be a mistake for Yonarajabhib (Sanskr Yavanarajaih). We can also read Samjayapurito. But the epithets Avantaka and Vanavāsaka applied to two other persons in the same context suggest that Samjayapurina is preferable.
