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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1907.
being that of the Buddha whose relics it contains, as well as that of the Sakyas, whose work it is. Professor Pischel, nevertheless, seeks for this superfluous word, and finds it in sutiti, which, according to him, stands for the Sanskrit sukriti, "pious foundation." No one will deny either the sense of the Sanskrit word or the possibility of the Prakrit equivalent, although according to the analogies of the Pali and of the Magadhi of the inscriptions one would rather have expected sukati or sukați. But all the same the expression is found now here in the numerous inscriptions of that period, which are nearly all deeds of gift or of consecration and in which stylistic formulas abound; so we find in them dana, danamukha, deyadhamma, dhammadeya, dhamma, but nothing resembling sukriti. However, passing by these objections, which certainly make one suspicions, we have the translation: "This receptacle of the relics of the blessed Buddha is the pious foundation of the Sakyas, of the brothers with their sisters, with their children and their wives." In this translation we at once feel the halting character in the original of the construction proposed by Professor Pischel, The genitive bhatinam stands in the air. We are not "the Sakya brothers," any more than we are "the French brothers" or "the German brothers;" we are "the brothers of somebody." It is necessary that this genitive, striding not only over sukiti but also over sakiyanam, should go on to attach itself to budhasa bhagavate, where it has not even a grammatical connection, a kind of verbal gymnastics perhaps admissible in the artificial style of the poets, but one which would be surprising in this language of the inscriptions which, though often elliptical and involved, is always direct. For surely this is how Prof. Pischel takes the matter: these Sakyas are the brothers, that is to say the distant relatives of the Buddha; and as he is accustomed to speak out plainly, he asserts as an established fact that the Stupa is "the very tomb of the Buddha," and that the inscription, the most ancient hitherto found [547] in India, was engraved immediately, or shortly, after his death, exactly in the year 480 B. C. After what has been stated above, namely, that there is little suitability in this fraternal relationship and that it is practically impossible to date the writing so far back, I hardly need add that Professor Pischel's interpretation appears inadmissible to me.
Professor Sylvain Lévi, too, has turned his attention to this patient, so obstinate in not allowing himself to be cured.13 Pursuing the course of investigation started by Professor Pischel, he also sets upon the word sukiti, but he makes it an adjective corresponding to the Sanskrit sukritin, "meritorious, pious," and qualifying "the brothers." From the point of view of the dictionary, nothing could be more legitimate; what is much less so is the joining together, in a compound, of this adjective with bhatinam. For, in this language of the oldest inscriptions, an adjective which is simply used as an epithet does not ordinarily compound with the substantive it qualifies, unless the two together constitute a standing expression. These "Sakyas, pious brothers," then, are naturally the brothers of the Buddha, which produces another difficulty to which I need not return again. I shall only remark that Professor Lévi, who points out the "awkwardness" of Professor Pischel's construction, proposes another which also is not very good, for with him, too, bhatinam is separated in a most untoward fashion from the word by which it is really or logically governed. Professor Lévi gives us the choice of two interpretations. According to one we should have the relies of the Buddha consecrated by the Sakyas, his pious brothers, together with their families. This, on the whole, is the conclusion of Professor Rhys Davids, with a less easy construction, and I think I have explained why I cannot accept it. In one point, however, a single one, Professor Lévi has improved it: he has clearly seen the difficulty of dating back this writing to the time of the Buddha, and he has not failed to warn us against the robust faith that allowed Professor Pischel to set it aside. He therefore supposes that the inscription merely recalls a more ancient consecration, and that it was probably cut on the occasion of
13 Journal des Savants, 1905, p. 640 f.
