Epigraphia Indica Vol 34

Author(s): D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 34

11
No. 2]
BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS FROM MATHURA
consonant followed by y. The date is quoted as he 1 di/5 (i.e. the 5th day of the first month of winter, i.e. probably Margasirsha-badi 5) in the year 92 apparently of the Kanishka era (usually identified with the Saka era of 78 A.D.) and possibly corresponding to 170-71 A.D.
If it is believed that no letters are lost at the end of the lines of writing, the object of the inscription is to record the erection of a Stupa of the Buddhist monk Gramadesika (literally, 'one who preaches in the villages') who was a resident of the Buddhist monastery called Venda-vihāra apparently situated at Mathura. In such a case, the person (or persons) responsible for the construction of the Stupa is not mentioned in the inscription. In the present context, the word stupa mean a memorial structure enshrining the relics of the monk in question. Otherwise, the structure was built mainly out of the amounts collected by the monk.
TEXT1
1 Sa[m] 90 2 he 1 di 5 asya purvva[ye]
2 Venda-viha(ha)re va(vi)stavya-bhikshusa Grama).
3 desikasa sthuva pra[ti*]shthäppa)yati [sa).
4 rva-sav[v](tvā)na[m] hita-su[kh&]ye []*]
3. Inscription of Nripamitra3
The inscription, incised on the pedestal of a broken image, was found in Dudhwala's well near the city of Mathura. It consists of four lines of writing, which cover an area about 7 inches long and about 24 inches in height. Lines 3 and 4 are really engraved at the beginning and end of the same line. Individual letters, excluding conjuncts, etc., are about inch in height. Apparently no line of writing has broken away from the top of the inscribed slab ; but about one-third of the writing of lines 1-2 has completely peeled off from the middle.
The characters are Brahmi of about the 5th century A.D. They may be compared with the alphabet of the Kushana epigraphs from Mathura, including the two inscriptions edited above, as well as the two Mathura inscriptions of the time of Chandragupta II, one of which is fragmentary while the other is dated in the Gupta year 61 (380 A.D.). Although many letters including m, y and 8 as found in our record are also noticed in both the groups of Mathura epigraphs referred to above, there are a few palaeographical peculiarities of the inscription under study, to which attention may be drawn. Our inscription exhibits three types of the medial i sign, viz. (1) that formed by a curve at the top of a consonant, the left end of the former not coming down much below the top matrā of the latter (cf. di in line 4); (2) that in which the left end of the said curve comes down below the bottom line of the consonant (cf. dhi and hi in line 2; vi in line 3); and (3) that in which the left end of the curve is drawn inwards to very near its root at the top of the consonant (cf. kshi ir line 1, yi and mi in line 2, etc.). In the Brahmi inscriptions of the age of the Kushāņas of Kanishka's house, the left end of the curve of the medial i sign lies generally above the line of the top
1 From an impression.
* On the impression, this letter looks more like a. If it is really so, the word intended here was apparently achariya (Sankarit acharya) and we have to presume that a number of letters have broken away from the end of this line as well as from that of lines 1-2.
This is No. B 594 of A. R. Ep., 1957-58. The stone bears the acquisition No. 4378. See CII, Vol. III, Plate III A; above, Vol. XXI, Plate facing p. 8.