EIAD 84. Pillar from Nagarjunakonda author of digital edition Arlo Griffiths Vincent Tournier European Research Council (ERC), grant agreement no 809994 DHARMA Paris DHARMA_INSEIAD00084.xml CC BY-SA 4.0 2019-2026 Pillar from Nagarjunakonda Arlo Griffiths Arlo Griffiths Vincent Tournier Stefan Baums Ingo Strauch assistance with XML encoding and metadata verification Chloé Chollet assistance with XML encoding and metadata verification Marine Schoettel digital humanities consultant Emmanuelle Morlock digital humanities consultant Andrew Ollett

First digital edition made by École française d'Extrême-Orient (Paris, France), realized in collaboration with the HiSoMA Research Centre (Lyon, France) and hosted by TGIR Huma-Num (France) as Early Inscriptions of Āndhradeśa, in 2015-2017.

Early Inscriptions of Āndhradeśa DHARMA_INSEIAD00084

Copyright (c) 2017 by Arlo Griffiths and Vincent Tournier.

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 DHARMAbase EFEO EIAD 84 Nagarjunakonda Museum unknown The numbers 399/28 and I/28 recorded in published sources are not current numbers.

Encoded in TEI/EpiDoc according to the DHARMA Encoding Guide for Documentary Editions, version 2

EIAD file transformed to follow the DHARMA encoding structure. Metadata extracted to be checked and updated according DHARMA workflow. Done through XSLT.
vama śuddhācāravr̥ttasya Akkhaṇḍācchidrāśabalākalmāṣaśīlasya hetvarthaśabdaśāstrakr̥tapariśramasya Āgamavinayopadeśaprakaraṇācaryyamatadharasya vr̥ttaśrutamativāgvaiśāradyaguṇopapaṁnasya dharmmakathikapañcamasya viniścayakathikaviśiṣṭasya saddharmmacakravibhūṣitaddhvajasamucchraya
vama.......laOr read dharma?gasyaAkkhaṇḍācchidrāśabalā-Akuṇṭhācchidrāmalā-The spelling Akkhaṇḍa is also attested in Pali as a variant of Akhaṇḍa (cf. CPD, s.v.). Our reconstruction, including the word aśabala instead of amala, is supported by the frequent occurrence of this along with the three other adjectives to qualify śīla in Pali and Sanskrit texts. See, for instance, Dīgha-Nikāya III 227; Mahāvastu (ed. ) I 337; Samādhirājasūtra (ed. Vaidya) 103-104.-ācaryyamata-We expect -ācāryya- but the present reading may be interpreted as a Middle-Indicism; the compound ācariyamata/ācāryamata is attested in Buddhist sources in Pali/Sanskrit language.-guṇopapaṁnasyaUnderstand -guṇopapannasya. An akṣara seems to have been voluntarily removed at the beginning of line 6 before na.-pañcamasyapravīṇasyasaddharmmacakravibhūṣitaddhvajasamucchraya-maṁtra.....pītaddhvajasamr̥ddha saOur reconstruction of the last part of the compound is, for instance, supported by the fact that compounds in dhvaja + ud√śri are extremely common in Buddhist literature. The restoration vibhūṣitadhvaja is supported by the fact that in the Gaṇḍavyūha a Buddha bears the name of Lakṣaṇavibhūṣitadhvajacandra. Cf. see BHSD, s.v. The idea of restoring saddharmmacakra- is informed by stanzas 1 and 2 of EIAD 104. At the end, one should probably restore -samucchrayasya.

... of ... whose life is characterized by pure conduct; whose morality is faultless, free from defects, stainless and spotless; who has exerted himself in the sciences of logic, polity, and grammar; who preserves the Āgamas, the Vinaya, the Upadeśas, the Prakaraṇas and the opinions of [past] teachers; who is endowed with the (four) virtues of confidence in behavior, learning, thinking, and speech; who is the fifth (?) Dharma expounder; the distinguished expounder of exegesis; by whom (?) has been raised (this) banner adorned with a wheel of the excellent Dharma ...

The list of four vaiśāradyas occurring here compares best to the four confidences attained by the bodhisattvas before their Awakening, mentioned twice in the first Avalokitasūtra of the Mahāvastu (ed. ) II 261.5-6, 262.6-7. According to Senart’s edition, this consists of kāya-, vācā-, citta-, and pr̥thu-. As noticed by , vol. II: 545, the last element is difficult to understand and possibly corrupt. The reading pr̥thu- is supported in both passages by the oldest manuscript Sa (, vol. I: fol. 197b2, 198a3) but in the second instance it is the result of a scribal emendation. This fact confirms that there is a problem in the textual transmission. Senart suggests we should understand pr̥thag-, but as noticed by Edgerton (BHSD s.v.) this is not very helpful. One may speculate that the Avalokitasūtra formerly read pr̥cchā-. In any case, the first three vaiśāradyas of the list match the nos. 1, 3 and 4 of the inscription's list. For other lists of four vaiśāradyas mastered by bodhisattvas, see , vol. III: 1606-7, 1613; : 155-56, 160.

While the syllable ma is here supplied, almost no other reading than -pañcamasya is imaginable. The meaning of ‘fifth’ is unclear, and one wonders if one of the rare meanings of pañca must here be reckoned with. Such a meaning is discussed by : 60, where the equivalence pañcatā = viśālatva is presented. If so, one could translate ‘eminent Dharma expounder’.

Ramachandran thinks there is a ninth line in this inscription, at whose beginning he would read an akṣara ya. But no such line is visible on the estampage.

First described and edited by , then re-edited by the same author in : 28; our edition is based on the latter. Re-edited here from our photos of the ASI estampage.

1945-46: no. B.159: no. Naga 70: 186-7 (no. 65)