________________
Cunningham's and in Jayaswal's plates, but none of them shows an ā after da. We must accordingly read kammupadanapanādena, though Mr. Jayaswal's plate seems to have kammupudana. A Sanskrit utpadana does not, so far as I am aware, exist, but the form would in itself be thinkable. A karmotpadanapraņāda might be translated, 'the noise, turmoil, rising though the action', though I do not think this explanation quite satisfactory. In the next word the first akşaras are certainly sa and ba, or rather, so far as I can see, bā. The ta is apparently quite certain according to the lithographs of Cunningham and Bhagwanlal, but I cannot see any ta in Mr. Jayaswla's plate, where the crucial akşara looks like dhe. I would therefore provisionally read sabādhe. With regard to the next words Mr. Jayaswal's plate seems to favour Bhagwanlal's reading senavāhane vipamucitu Madhuram apayāto. In the ensuing aksaras I can see yavanarājā, as read by Mr. Jayaswal, and of his Dimata the ma is quite legible. My reading and translation would accordingly be etinā ca kammupadanapanādena sabadhe senavāhane vipamucitu Madhuram apayāto yavanarājā (Di)-ma(ta), and through the uproar occasioned by the action the Yavana king Demetrios went off to Mathurä in order to relieve his generals who were in trouble. The most important words of the passage are of course the two last ones, and I am inclined to think that Mr. Jayaswal's new reading is absolutely certain. He has also rightly explained Dimata as a rendering of the Greek Demetrios, i.e. of course Demetrios, the son of Euthydemos, whose Indian conquests are mentioned by Greek and Latin authors. If we knew when Demetrios returned from his Indian expedition, we should accordingly be in a position a determine the exact date of Khāravela. We know that Demetrios, when still a young man, negotiated peace between his father Euthydemos and Antiochos the Great in B.C. 205, and that he married the latter's daughter.'' He is generally considered to have ascended the throne of Bactria about the end of the century. His Indian conquests are mentioned by Strabo XI.11, 1 20 who states that he and Menandros were foremost amongst those Indian princes who extended the Greek dominion beyond Ariana. Demetrios was, according to Strabo, the son of the Bactrian king Euthydemos, and Bactria was the starting point for the conquests through
102 C
J
T
451 31 131
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
