Indian Antiquary Vol 18

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 16

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1889.
commence a new one, and nijhapayitá requires an object. It further follows that the condemned, under consideration, cannot be the subject of rijhapayisariti. This is the more important, as this verb has much puzzled interpreters, and no satisfactory explanation has as yet been offered for it. Jhap has been derived from kshup, the causal of kshi, and from a phonetic point of view, no objection can be taken to this. But, putting out of the question the fact that this verb is used nowhere else with the particle ni, this analysis leads to most complicated and unsatisfactory constractions. We find in Páli the verb nijjhápéti (cf. Childers, 6. v.), the regular causal of the Sanskrit ni-dhyai, with the perfectly legitimate meaning of 'to cause to know,'to turn the attention towards. We have here, it is true, the shortened form, nijhapéti; but this occurs under the same influences as those which have produced thapéti from sthápayati and other similar examples. Nothing, therefore, prevents us from identifying this verb as occurring here. The subject of the verb must necessarily either be indefinite, as often happens in our inscriptions (of. dékhati above in the 1st ediet), or, which will come to the same thing, the officials, these purushas and rajúkas, of whom mention has just been made.
A very easy explanation now unfolds itself for the phrase which commences with nátiká. vakáni. I grant, says the king, a respite of three days to those condemned to death before the execution of their punishment; they will bring them face to face with neitber more nor less' or in other words, they will explain to them that a space of three days and no more is all the delay accorded to them to live. This translation agrees exactly with the nijhapayitá of the following sentence. Hitherto a participle absolute has been sought for in this word; but in that case the use of the form nisijitu, a few lines above, would have led us to expect nijhapayitu. It is really a plural participle with which we are dealing, payitá being for pitd, just as we find védayitam in Pali and in Buddhist Sanskrit, and sukhayita below (viii. 3). Burnouf, I may add, took the word as a participle, although he analysed the root in an altogether different manner. The meaning is therefore, he who has had his attention drawn to, who is warned of.' The object can only be násaintain, which, as Lassen suggests, can well be referred back to násántam, 'the term' or 'limit of their execution.'
V&is vai, or rather, as we so often meet it, éva,
It is unnecessary to refer again to the adjective palatika, or to the futures ddharti and kachhaniti.
11. The phrase niludhasi kálasi is the last in this inscription which offers any difficulty. Both Burnouf and Dr. Kern suggest a reading niludhasápi kalasi, during the time of their imprisonment. If this translation is to be retained, the correction is indispensable. It would nevertheless, in the face of the agreement of all the facsimiles and versions, be better to avoid it if possible. To this consideration must be added others which are, I admit, less decisive. In the first place, we should have rather expected milódhasa, as both Burnouf and Dr. Kern have perceived. In the second, the use of kala to denote the time which elapses, or period, does not appear to me to be in accord with the custom of the language. I propose to avoid these various difficulties by taking kálasi as the locative of kárá, prison. The change of gender need not surprise us after so many analogous examples: at any rate, it is not so astonishing to meet the masculine locative kárasi of kárá, as to meet * feminine locative kalayan of kála, at Rûpnâth (1.2). Niludhasi would then appear in its proper position as participle, and the locative would mean, 'even in & closed dungeon'; even when shut up in duageon. This interpretation appears to me to render more striking, at least in form, the evidently intentional antithesis between this phrase and pdlatan.
12. This last portion represents, as indicated by the final iti, either a wish or an intention of the king. It appears as if a potential were needed. Perhaps we have here, if we take vadhati as being for vadháti, one of those traces of the subjunctive to which we have more than onco drawn attention both in Páli and in Buddhist Sanskrit (cf. Mahávastu, I. 499, &c.).