________________
No. 32)
SOME BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS
211
teachers of the Aparamhävinaseliya community are known from several inscriptions from Nägarjunikonda itself. They are also mentioned in some of the Amaravati inscriptions. The said Bect has been identified with the Aparaselika subdivision of the Mahāsānghikas: while the Aparaselikas (Aparasailikas) and Pubbaselikas (Purvasailikas) have been supposed to have derived their names from the Aparabela (Aparasaila) and Pubbasela (Purvasaila) located by Hiuen-tsang on the hills respectively to the west and east of Dhānyakataka (modern Amarāvati).. But why the Aparasailikas or Aparasailiyas were called Aparamahāvinaseliya in the early inscriptions of Andhra Pradesh cannot be satisfactorily explained. A number of geographical names are mentioned in this inscription. But we are not sure about their location.
Lines 6-7 of the inscription contains the reference to a second endowment in the passage sa cha akhaya-nivi dināri-māsakānam divadham salam. .....supayutan (Sanskrit sä сha akshaya-nivi dināra-mäshakānär duyardhan satan......suprayuktam). In this, divadha is the same as Pali diyaddha or divaddha meaning 'one and a half'. The amount of money deposited for the creation of the endowment was therefore 150 dināri-māsakas. The first component of the name of the coin is associated with Sanskrit dināra while the second is the same as Sanskrit mäshaka, dināri and dināra being Indian modifications of Latin denarius. The same coin is also known from another Nagarjunikonda inscription. Since mäshaka was one-sixteenth of the standard suvarna, it is sometimes regarded as identical with the South Indian Fanam which may have been regarded as one-sixteenth of the Roman Denarius or Aureus, imported in the course of trade in the South Indian ports in the early centuries of the Christian era, either in weight or in value. The following line of the inscription (line 7) contains the passage esā cha akhaya-nivi ku[li]ka-pamukhāya.... The mention of kulika, 'the chief or head of a guild,' here reminds us of the deposit of an akshaya-nivi in the nikaya or sreni, ' guild ', as referred to in certain early Indian inscriptions. The word atatheya in line 8 seems to stand for Sanskrit ätitheya, 'hospitable'.
IV
The preservation of the fourth and last of the four inscriptions, although fragmentary, is somewhat better than the others. It consists of 6 lines of writing, of which the first is almost totally obliterated and the second broken at both the ends. The concluding part of the inscription is also lost. But the letters of the extant portion are well preserved and read as follows:
1 ....................... 2 ..................tasa sanhvachharan.......... 3 gimba-pakham bitiyam divasam padhamam 1 [81]4 ripavate Vijayapuriya puva-disā-bha5 ge vihāre Chula-Dhammagiriyam Achamtarāj-a
6 chariyanam sakasamaya-parasamaya-88The insoription abruptly ends here as indicated above.
The record was apparently engraved during the reign of a king whose name ended with the word data (Sanskrit datta) such as Virapurushadatta and Rulapurushadatta. Since a large
1 Above, Vol. XX, pp. 17, 19, 21; Vol. XXI, p. 66. * Burgose, Amaravati, p. 105, No. 40; Hultzsch, Z. D. M. G., Vol. XXXVII, pp. 560 ff. ; Vol. XL, p. 344. Cf. Mahavamsa, V, 12; Dipavamsa V, 04. Cf. Watters, On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, Vol. II, pp. 214 f. Above, Vol. XX, p. 19. . Cf. Successors of the Satavahanas, p. 28.
Of. Select Inscriptions, pp. 147, 158. • Tho name is not Ruluo us read above, Vol. XXVI, p. 125
