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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
www.kobatirth.org
224
OLD BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS
We say that the use of Goradhagiri as a personal name in Kharavela's Vinscription is not impossible. For in the Mabāvamsa, Giri occurs as the name of a Nigamtha or Jain contemporary of King Vattagāmani of Ceylon. In one of the ancient Brāhmi inscriptions, Yasogiri occurs as the name of a Buddhist monk. In Jain literature, Mahāgiri and Simhagiri occur as the names of two Jain apostles. And none need be surprised if Mahendragiri occurs as the name of the king of Pişthapura in the Alla habad Pillar inscription of Samudragupta. 3
The use of the verbal expression ghātāpayitā in the sense of “having caused to be killed " is appropriate, if Goradhagiri is a personal name. It may be argued that the use of the same verbal expression in the sense of “having caused to be stormed” is equally appropriate, if Goradhagiri is the name of a hill-fortress or mountain-fastness. We cannot but agree with Mr. Jayaswal when he maintains that the use of the expression Goradhagirim ghātāpayitā, even where Goradhagiri is the name of a hillfortress, is sanctioned by literary usage, and calls our attention to the Pali expression Dīpaghātakā Damilā, “the Tamil devastators of the Island of Larikā."4
The Mahābhārata is the only Indian work where we have the mention of Gorathagiri as a hill or mountain from which one might have a view of Girivraja or Old Rājagặha, the first or most ancient known capital of Magadha. Mr. Jackson is inclined to think that this Gorathagiri is no other than the mountain which Hwen Thsang saw between Pāțaliputra and
1. Lüders' List of Brāhmi inscriptions, No. 601,
2. P. O. Bagchi" On the Pūrvas", Calcutta University Journal of the Department of Letters, Vol. XIV, p. 5.
3. It is only by suggestio falsi that Fleet represents Mahendragiri of Samudragupta's inscription as the name of a hill or mountain. From the system of using the patronymio of a place name as an adjunct of a personal nume which has beeu consistently maintained in the whole list of the kings subdged by the Indian Napoleon, it is easy to understand, As D. R. Bhandarkar points out, that Mahendragiri is a ersonal name, nothing but a personal name. Kausalaka-Mahendra-Māhākāntā, aka-Vyaghrarāja-Kuuraluka. MaņţarăjaPaişthapuraka - Mahendragiri-Kautturaka-Svāmidatta, etu.
4. Attentio might be drawn to a better instance in the Däthāvamsa, III. 16 (JPTS, 1884, p. 126): Kutena ghātā payi dantadhatum," he caused the tooth-relio to be smashed with a hammer." 5. Mahābhārata, II. 19-30.
Goratham girim asadya dadráur Magadhan purap. 6. JBORS, Vol. I, Part II, p. 162.
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