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No 38-BANAVASI INSCRIPTION OF VINHUKADA SATAKANNI,
YEAR 12
(1 Plate) G. 8. GAI, OOTACAMUND
(Received on 2.12.1959)
This well-known inscription was discovered by J. Burgess as early as 1879-80 at Banavisi, & village about 15 miles southeast of Sirsi, the headquarters of the Taluk of that name in the North Kanara District of Mysore. The record is engraved on the two edges of a large slate slab bearing a beautiful representation of a five-hooded cobra. The slab is fixed into a niche in the courtyard of the Madhukēbvara temple. The inscription consists of three lines, the first line being on the left margin of the slab from top to bottom and the others on the right margin.
The epigraph was first published by Bhagwanlal Indraji who read the text as follows: 1 Sidhar Raño Håriti-putasa Viphukadaduțukulānanda-Satakapisa vasa-satāya sava
chharam 12 Hemamtāna pakha 7 divasa 1 mahābhūviya maharaja-[bāli]kiya jivsputa2 [bhä]jāya sa-kumi[rāya] Sivakhandanāgasiriya deyadhamma nägo tadagam vihäro cha (11
etha[l] kamatiko amacho Khadasātisa [l*] Jayamtakasa achariyasa (putasa) 3 Damorakasa sisena Natakena nāgo kato [ll*]
Indraji thought that a letter was broken away at the beginning of the second line, perhape two more a little way down and some at the end of the same line which he restored in square brackets. Burgess, in an editorial note, observed that the letters in the second line read as yo saku° and Sivakhadanao may also be read somewhat differently. The translation of the record given by Indrajit runs: "To the Perfect! In the year 12 of the century, the king (being) Häritiputa Sätakaội, the cherisher of the Vehnukadaduţu (?) family, the 7th fortnight of the winter months, 1st day, the meritorious gift of the Mahābhuvi (Mahābhojt), the king's daughter, Sivakhandanāgasiri, wife of Jivaputa, with her son- of & Näga, a tank and a vihāra. These three works by the prime minister Khadasāti. Nataka, the disciple of Demoraka and son of the Acharya Jayantaka, made the Näga."
Bühler who re-edited the inscription suggested the reading visa-satāya (for vasa-satäya) standing for Sanskrit vibra-sattāyāḥ, ' of the rule of the universe or univeral sovereignty', although later he adopted the reading vasa-satāya and interpretated it as Sanskrit vasa-sattāyā), of the existence of the rule'. At the beginning of the second line, he supplied the letter pa instead of bha suggested by Indraji, and took the whole compound as jiva puta-pajāya, remarking that the u-stroke of yu was due to a scratch and hence accidental. He read the next three letters as sa
1 Inscriptions from the Cave Temples of Western India, 1881. pp. 100-01. .Macron over e and o has not been used in this article. • Ibid., p. 100, note 2.
Ibid., p. 100. . Ind. Ant., Vol. XIV, pp. 331-34.
• Above, Vol. I, p. 96. Acoording to Fleet pasa-lataya stands for varsha-sattaya, 'of the year-existence, 1.e. of the continuance for one year more (JRAS, 1906, pp. 304-06). [In our opinion, those interpretations of the expression are wrong. See below, p. 241, uoto 1. -Ed.)
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