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146
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( AUGUST, 1926
of the Behar and Orissa Research Society he has published for the benefit of epigraphists an excellent impression of the inscription. His reading and translation differ from those of previous scholars in a surprising and disquieting manner. He believes that the passage as a . whole describes a procession in honour of a king, who lived thirteen centuries earlier,' .... which had been established by the former kings in the City of Přith-udaka-darbha and which is pleasing to the country. A note informs us that the city in question must have been in Kalinga. Finally we are told after a discussion (p. 437) that the passage refers to the statue of a certain king Ketu, installed at Pịthüda kadarbha, the city abounding in water and darbha grass.' This rendering is based on a new reading ot line 11, -puvaraja-nivesitam Pithudaga-dabha-nagala nekdsayati....
"It is at once obvious that the difference in the interpretation of the passage depends rather upon the method of splitting up its component words than upon any novelty of reading. The differences of reading are confined merely to the following syllables :-P (Bhag. Pa; Laders, Pi); da (Bhag. dan: Laders, da); le ne (Bhag, and Laders, lena); and they are concerned purely and simply with certain accessory signs, attached to the clear outline of the consonants and regarded somewhat arbitrarily as either script-signs or chance-marks in the stone. Mr. Jayaswal neither explains, nor thinks it necessary to explain, the difficulties which form the stumbling-block of the general body of inquirers, viz., the vowel e in the syllable ne of nekasayati, which he doubtless equates with nis-karyayati, as he translates it he leads out'; and this being so, the absence of an aspirate in the ka (always and in all places nikkha); and thirdly and above all, the amazing construction of the sentence, viz., epithet in the accu sative, locative, verb, epithet in the accusative, a bunch of six words forming a compound noun in the accusative and what a compound, calculated to be the despair of the schools of grammarians ! terasa-rasa-sata-ketu-bhada-tit amara-deha-sanghatan, which signifies, it appears, "[he leads out in procession) the nim-wood formation of the immortal body (i.e., statue) of His Highness Ketu who (flourished) thirteen centuries before'. One thinks involuntarily of the scene of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme with the son of the Grand Turk.
“For the purpose of record i reproduce here the translation of the same passage proposed by Mr. R. D. Banerji in the same journal (vol. III, 486 et seq.): 'He caused the reputation of the feet (i.e., the worship) of the Jina to expand in the city of Pithudaga-dabha founded by former kings.'
"On the other hand, the first interpretation (of Lüders and Bhagvanlal) requires no special effort for its justification. The sense follows normally from the meaning of the verb kasayati. The verb kas=kars is applied properly to ploughing, and therefore evokes by natural association of ideas the name of the plough, nangala (here nagala ; cf. PithudaPihumda), this being the Prakrit form of the Sanskrit långala. Gadabha-nagala seems to refer to a plough drawn by an ass. I do not remember in the texts any case of this kind, in which, in order to destroy a city, the conqueror causes the soil of it to be ploughed. But such action is by no means unlikely or inconceivable.
"Ptolemy, describing the towns in the interior of the country of the Maisoloi (VII. 1. 93). calls the capital Pitundra métropolis. The country of the Maisoloi, or Maisolia (VII. 1. 15). takus its name from the river Maisolos, which signifies the whole extent of the mouths of the Godåvari and the Kistna. The Periplus speaks of Masalia, instead of Maisôlia. This word has been for a long time connected etymologically with the first part of the well-known name Masulipatam. Maisôlia extends northwards to Paloura, or more precisely to the cape of the apheterion close to Paloura. The coast-towns Kontakossyla, Koddoura, Allosygn, and the inland towns Kalliga, Bardamana, Koroungkala, and Pharutra have not yet been identified. Ptolemy places Pitundra in the hinterland, between the mouths of the Maisolos and the Manadas, or in other words, between the deltas of the Godavari and Mahanadi, at an equal
