Octagonal pillar from Kesanapalli — reign of Vāsiṭṭhīputta Siri-Cāntamūla, year 13

Editors: Arlo Griffiths, Vincent Tournier.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSEIAD00003.

Hand description:

Language: Middle Indo-Aryan.

Repository: Early Andhra (tfb-eiad-epigraphy).

Version: (a154659), last modified (77e39b7).

Edition

⟨1⟩ [vāsi]⟨Fragment left⟩ṭhīputasa siricāṁtamūlasa saṁvacharaṁ 103hemaṁtonaṁ 1diva 1mahāraṭhisa ⟨Fragment right⟩ ⟨2⟩ ⟨Fragment left⟩gāme niḍiṁgale nigājasa bahusutīyānaṁ mūlavasiviharacetike gaṁ ⟨Fragment right⟩ ⟨3⟩ ⟨Fragment left⟩budhisa putehi vānikinīya haṁgāya putehi v(ā)ṇijakehi mahācaṁdena cula ⟨Fragment right⟩ ⟨4⟩ ⟨Fragment left⟩sasehi ca nīgasaṁbaṁdhīvagehi Ekat(o) h(o)tuṇa mahācetike budhinikhaṁbho pa[t]i⟨Fragment right⟩[ṭhapito]

Apparatus

⟨1⟩ hemaṁtonaṁ ⬦ hemaṁtānaṁ ⟨pakhaṁ⟩ Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970 • We suggest emending instead hemaṁtapakhaṁ, taking into consideration the likely miswriting of naṁ for khaṁ, and the omission of pa. Alternatively, the intended text might have been the abbreviated hemaṁta pa.

⟨2⟩ niḍiṁgale ⬦ niḍigale Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970. — ⟨2⟩ -vihara- ⬦ -vihāra- Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970. — ⟨2⟩ gaṁ • The akṣara gaṁ, still visible on the estampage, is now covered by concrete. It is possible to restore here gaṁ(dhakuḍi), cf. EIAD 97, l. 3. Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970 (n. 10) proposes instead gaṁ(jikūṭavathavasa vaṇijakasa), after EIAD 2, ll. 4-5.

⟨3⟩ v(ā)ṇijakehi ⬦ vaṇijakehi Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970. — ⟨3⟩ cula • These two akṣaras, still visible on the estampage, are now covered by concrete.

⟨4⟩ nīga- • One may tentatively understand this word as deriving from nija(ka). Cf. EIAD 54, l. 1: svajanasaṁbandhivargena. — ⟨4⟩ Ekat(o) h(o)tuṇa ⬦ ekatahetuno Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970 • Cf. EIAD 105, l. 9: Ekato hotūna.

Translation

(1) 13th year of (King) Vāsiṭṭhīputta Siri-Cāntamūla 1st (fortnight) of winter, 1st day.

(1–4) At the village of Niḍiṁgala ... of the governor, at the shrine of the Mūlavāsivihāra of the school of the Bahuśrutīyas, the merchants Mahācanda and Cūla ... — sons of Budhi, the ... and of the merchant-wife Haṅgā — having united with ... and the groups of their own relatives, established a pillar for Budhi at the Great Shrine.

Commentary

(4) budhinikhaṁbho1

Bibliography

Three editions of this inscription were published almost simultaneously by Khan and Ramesan 1969, p. 2, Subrahmanyam 1969, and Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970. The latter is the most reliable. Part of the text is currently hidden by cement, so besides autopsy and our own photos of the stone, we rely for this re-edition on published photographs.

Secondary

Srinivasan, P. R. and S. Sankaranarayanan. 1979. Inscriptions of the Ikshvāku period. Epigraphical Series 14. Hyderabad: Govt. of Andhra Pradesh. Page no. 2.

Tsukamoto Keishō 塚本啓祥. 1996. インド仏教碑銘の研究 I, Text, Note, 和訳 Indo Bukkyō himei no kenkyū I: Text, Note, Wayaku [A comprehensive study of the Indian Buddhist inscriptions, Part I: Text, Notes and Japanese Translation]. Kyōto-shi 京都市: Heirakuji Shoten 平楽寺書店. Page no. Kesa 16.

Hanumantha Rao, B. S. L., N. S. Ramachandra Murthy, B. Subrahmanyam and Īmani Śivanāgireḍḍi. 1998. Buddhist inscriptions of Andhradesa. Secunderabad: Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust. Page 178 (no. 1).

Raghunath, K. 2001. The Ikṣvākus of Vijayapuri: A study of the Nagarjunakonda inscriptions. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers. Pages 70–1 (no. 3).

Notes

  1. 1. We follow here one of the suggestions offered by Sankaranarayanan 1969–1970, p. 316, namely to analyze this compound as budhi-nikhaṁbha and to interpret the first part as pointing to the donors’ father. The term nikhaṁbha (Skt. niṣkambha) may be taken as a variant of *vikhaṁbha (Skt. viṣkambha, cf. MW, s.v. niṣkambha), whose meaning we tentatively take here to be identical to the more common khaṁbha. The fact that the dedicatee’s name was attached to the pillar being established suggests it had a commemorative function.