N. 353. Prayer of the mahānāvika Buddhagupta (ca. 7th c. CE)

Author of digital edition: Arlo Griffiths (argr).

Palaeographic description: Late Southeast Asian Brāhmī

Language: Old Javanese (kaw) [Southeast Asian Brāhmī (other) (brāhmī_southeast_asian_other)].

Repository: Nusantara Epigraphy (tfc-nusantara-epigraphy).

Identifier: DHARMA_INSIDENK00353.

File path: xml/DHARMA_INSIDENK00353.xml.

Version: (b8a1af8), last modified (95db375).

Edition

⟨Zone A: Front⟩

⟨1⟩ (A)jñānāc cīyate karmma _ janmanaḥ karmma kāraṇa⟨ṁ⟩

⟨2⟩ jñānān na cīyate (karmma) [karmmābhāvān na jāyate]

⟨Zone B: Top⟩

⟨3⟩ [śrī-sarvva?]jña-(pādau?) śirasā praṇipat[ya]

⟨Zone C: Left⟩

⟨4⟩ sarvveṇa prakāreṇa _ sarvvasmin sarvvathā-sa[r]vva-

⟨5⟩ -siddhayāt[r]ā⟨ḥ⟩ santu

⟨Zone D: Right⟩

⟨6⟩ sa[.]v[.] [******][.]r[.][**][*][*]

⟨7⟩ mahānāvika-buddhaguptasya raktam¡r̥i!ttika-vās[tavyasya?]

Translation

1.

“Through ignorance, karma is accumulated; karma is the cause of rebirth; through knowledge, karma is not accumulated; in the absence of karma, one is not reborn.”

⟨3–7⟩ “By all means, in everything, in all respects, may they be entirely successful in their journeys! …” After bowing with the head to the feet of the Omniscient One (i.e., the Buddha), the mahānāvika Buddhagupta, resident of Raktamr̥ttika, [formulates the above prayer].

Commentary

The text is laid out in four zones, on the front and three sides of a stone slab whose front also bears the depiction of a stūpa. The line of text on the upper side was included in Low’s and Laidlay’s facsimiles but excluded in subsequently produced estampages and editions. It is here tentatively taken to be the first line intended to be read after the stanza. On the side to the viewer’s right, the first line has also been ignored by previous scholars: from the traces of writing that remain visible on the estampages, we infer that it may have started with an expression like sattvarāśayaḥ for “all beings”, or sarvajñāna for “omniscience” — the latter being our preferred hypothesis, given the inscription’s focus on “knowledge” (jñāna) —, and ended with a word like praṇidhi, praṇidhāna, or prārthanā.

The opening stanza is attested throughout maritime Southeast Asia in the second half of the first millennium CE, but has not yet been traced to any Buddhist scripture (Skilling 2015). The relevance to the rest of the inscription of the version of the Supāragajātaka contained in Āryaśūra’s Jātakamālā was first observed by Chhabra (1935, p. 19, n. 4) and discussed by Nilakanta Sastri (1937). The story concerns a group of merchants from Bharukaccha (Broach), wishing to undertake a voyage to Suvarṇabhūmi, who consult an old navigator called Supāraga, residing in Śūrpāraka (Sopara).1 The navigator is none other than a former incarnation of the Buddha, and the Bodhisattva’s name is explained as follows: tasya parama-siddhayātratvāt supāraga ity eva nāma babhūva, “he was called Supāraga (easily going to the opposite shore, also implying: fully conversant) because he was the acme of success is traveling”. Given the old and widespread association of Suvarṇabhūmi with parts of Southeast Asia (Revire 2018), including peninsular Malaysia, it seems quite possible that this version of the Supāragajātaka inspired the author of the inscription in elaborating on siddhayātra— although the expression siddhayātra is not unique to the Supāragajātaka in Buddhist literature.

What does not seem to have been observed in previous scholarship is how, starting from sarveṇa prakāreṇa, the wording finds an extensive parallel in the explanation of the opening stanza in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya:

yaḥ sarvathā-sarva-hatāndhakāraḥ saṁsārapaṅkāj jagad ujjahāra | tasmai namaskr̥tya yathārthaśāstre śāstraṁ pravakṣyāmy abhidharmakośam || sarveṇa prakāreṇa sarvasmin hatāndhakāraḥ sarvathā-sarva-hatāndhakāraḥ | ajñānaṁ hi bhūtārtha-darśana-pratibandhādhakāram | tac ca bhagavato buddhasya pratipakṣa-lābhenātyantaṁ sarvathā sarvatra jñeye punar-anutpatti-dharmatvād dhatam | ato ’sau sarvathā-sarva-hatāndhakāraḥ |.

While the opening stanza of the Abhidharmakośa, and the commentary on it, refer to the Buddha as sarvathā-sarva-hatāndhakāra, “Universal Dispeller of Everyone’s Darkness”, in our inscription the place of a Buddha’s epithet is taken by sarvathā-sarva-siddhayātra, designating all creatures aspiring to salvation, and possibly coined on the basis of the Supāragajātaka. In the Buddhist context of maritime Southeast Asia, the word siddhayātra is found in several inscriptions directly or indirectly associated with the kingdom of Sriwijaya, centered on Palembang in South Sumatra, Indonesia, sometimes in combination with sarvasattva (Krom 1938, Soeroso 1996).

The term (mahā)nāvika implies a professional involvement in maritime navigation, and the absence of any monastic terminology suggests rather clearly that Buddhagupta was a layman (although Skilling 2015 has advised not to exclude that Buddhagupta was a monk); Raktamr̥ttika, meaning “Red Earth”, is famous as the name of a monastery near Karṇasuvarṇa, at a village now called Rangamati, also meaning “Red Earth”, not far south of modern Murshidabad in what is now West Bengal, India. Some scholars assume that this is where Buddhagupta originated (Sircar 1971), but there are grounds for caution, not only because Buddhagupta the layman is unlikely to have been resident of a monastery (Skilling 2015, pp. 24–25) but also because toponyms having the same meaning are fairly common in South and Southeast Asia.2

It remains uncertain whether we are on the mark with our restitution [śrī-sarvva]jña (only the syllable jña being legible on Laidlay’s facsimile), but in this text focused on jñāna, the epithet sarvajña forms an ideally suitable designation of the Buddha, who is also symbolized as object of Buddhagupta’s veneration by the stūpa around which the text is engraved.

Bibliography

Facsimiles by Low (1835, reprinted by several later scholars including Jacq-Hergoualc’h 1992) and Laidlay 1848). After a preliminary attempt by Rajendralal Mitra, reported by Laidlay (1848), the first serious attempt at decipherment was published by Kern (1883), and his results were refined by Chhabra (1935). Kern’s publication was reprinted (1915) and published in English version (1907); Chhabra’s was reprinted too (1965). This digital edition based on the published facsimiles as well as and on estampages.

Primary

Kern, Johan Hendrik Caspar. 1883. “Over eenige oude Sanskritopschriften van ’t Maleische schiereiland.” VMKAW-L 1, pp. 5–12. Pages 7–9.

Kern, Johan Hendrik Caspar. 1907. “Concerning some old Sanskrit insciptions in the Malay Peninsula.” JSBRAS 49, pp. 95–101. [URL]. Pages 97–99.

Kern, Johan Hendrik Caspar. 1915. “Over eenige oude Sanskrit-opschriften van ’t Maleische schiereiland.” In: Verspreide geschriften, derde deel: Voor-Indië, slot; Achter-Indië, eerste gedeelte. ’s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, pp. 255–262. [URL]. Pages 258–260.

Chhabra, Bahadur Chand. 1935. “Expansion of Indo-Aryan culture during Pallava rule as evidenced by inscriptions.” JASB (Lett.) 1 (1), pp. 1–64. Pages 16–20, plate 3.

Chhabra, Bahadur Chand. 1965. Expansion of Indo-Aryan culture during Pallava rule (as evidenced by inscriptions). 1st ed. Delhi: Munshi Ram Manohar Lal. [URL]. Pages 20–26, plate 3.

Skilling, Peter. 2015. “The circulation of artefacts engraved with ‘apramāda’ and other mottos in Southeast Asia and India: A preliminary report.” ARIRIAB 18, pp. 63–77. [URL]. Pages 69–72.

Skilling, Peter. 2015. “An untraced Buddhist verse inscription from (Pen)Insular Southeast Asia.” In: Buddhist Dynamics in Premodern and Early Modern Southeast Asia. Edited by D. Christian Lammerts. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 18–79. Pages 21–25.

Secondary

Low, James. 1835. “Copy of an inscription on a stone found near the ruins of a Buddhist temple in Province Wellesley, Malayan Pen.” JASB 4, pp. 56, with pl. III. [URL].

Low, James. 1848. “An account of several inscriptions found in Province Wellesley on the peninsula of Malacca.” JASB 17 (2), pp. 62–66. [URL]. Pages 63–65.

Laidlay, J. W. 1848. “Note on the inscriptions from Singapore and Province Wellesley, forwarded by the Hon. Col. Butterworth, C.B. and Col. J. Low.” JASB 17 (2), pp. 66–72. [URL]. Page 71, plate IV, items 8-11.

Low, James. 1886. “An account of several inscriptions found in Province Wellesley, on the peninsula of Malacca.” In: Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China, volume I. Edited by Reinhold Rost. Trübner’s Oriental Series. London: Trübner & Co., pp. 223–226. [URL]. Pages 224–225.

Laidlay, J. W. 1886. “Note on the inscriptions from Singapore and province Wellesley.” In: Miscellaneous papers relating to Indo-China, volume I. Edited by Reinhold Rost. Trübner’s Oriental Series. London: Trübner & Co., pp. 227–232. [URL]. Pages 230–231, plate IV, items 8-11.

Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. 1937. “Siddhayātrā.” JGIS 4, pp. 128–136.

Sircar, Dines Chandra. 1971. Studies in the geography of ancient and medieval India. 2nd edition revised and enlarged. Delhi, Varanasi, Patna: Motilal Banarsidass. Pages 105, 121, 124.

Kongkaew Weeraprajak [ก่องแก้ว วีระประจักษ์]. [2532 BE] 1989. “Charuek run raek khong malesia; The earliest Sanskrit inscriptions found in Malaysia.” SJ 33 (4), pp. 30–38. Plate 30.

Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel. 1992. La civilisation de ports-entrepôts du sud Kedah (Malaysia) : Ve-XIVe siècle. Paris: L’Harmattan. Pages 219–221, figure 242.

Notes

  1. 1. Thus the reading of the name of the port city in the most recent edition of the Sanskrit text (Hanisch 2005, part 1, p. 126).

  2. 2. Wheatley (1961, p. 33) observed that “there are, for example, numerous instances of the typonym Tanah Merah on the present-day map of Malaya”, and likewise there is more than one Rangamati in West Bengal and Bangladesh.