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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
274
OLD BRĀHMI INSCRIPTIONS . undisputably the date of Kbāravela. In the present state of our knowledge, We can do no better than stating the three views put forward by three emi. nient Indian scholars, drawing the reader's attention to certain strong and weak points in the assumptions and arguments of each of them.
First Mr. Jayaswal's latest publication on the subject 1 assigns Kbāravela's accession to 182 B. C., taking him to be a contemporary of Puş yamitra, the founder of the Sunga-Mitra dynasty, whose accession is placed in 188 B. C. The validity of this view is claimed primarily on the soundness of identification of Bahasatimita or Bșhaspatimitra, mentioned in the Hāthi-Gumphā text as a contemporary Magadhan king whom Khāravela subdued in the twelfth year of his reign, chiefly on the ground that Babasati or Bșhaspati finds mention in the Sänkhyâyana Gșhya-Sūtra (I. 26. 6) as the presiding deity of the Puşya constellation of stars. King Bahasa timita or Bphaspatimitra is sought to be connected with the Sunga-Mitra kings of Magadha by the argument that a king of this very name figures in a Pabhosā inscription as the nephew of King Āşādhase na of Adhichatrā (in North Pancāla), while the main text of this inscription records the excavation of a cave by Aşāò hasena for the Kasyapiya Arhats in the tenth year of Udāka (Odraka, Odruka or Ardrakas) who happens to be counted in the Purāṇas as the fifth king of the SungaMitra dynasty. 4 The reign of a king known by the name of Brhaspati among the successors of King Asoka and of his grandson Sam prati can be inferred as well from a legendary list in the Divyâvadāna. The reign of a king known by the name of Brhaspatimitra towards the end of the Maurya rule can be inferred equally from Yasamitā's Brick-tablet, in which Queen Yasamitā (of Mathurā ?) is described as the daughter of Bșhās vātimita, a name that can be equated either with Bphaspatimitra or with Brhatsvātimitra, the Brāhmi letter-forms of this record appearing to be in their essential features still Mauryan. The coin-name Bahasatimita for Puşyamitra is explained by the fact, that in other Sunga-Mitra and Sungabhịty a-Kāņva coins, the names of some of the Sunga and Kāņva kings agree with and differ from those in the Purāņas :
1. JBORS, Vol. XIIJ, Parts III-IV, pp. 236-245. 2. JBORS, Vol. III, Part IV, pp. 477-478.
3. The Jains commentator Silänka equates U daka with Ardraka. See Jacobi's Jains Sūtras, Part II, p. 417.
4. Pargiter's Dynasties of the Kali Age, p. 31; JBORS, Vol. III, Part IV, p. 474. - 5. JBORS, Vol. I, p. 96.
6. EI, Vol. II, pp. 242-243,
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