Inscription for installation of Sarasvatī by Yajñavarāha at Banteay Srei (K. 575)

Editor: Dominic Goodall.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSCIK00575.

Summary: In one anuṣṭubh stanza, this inscription records the installation of Vāgīśvarī by Yajñāvarāha.

Language: Sanskrit.

Repository: Khmer (tfc-khmer-epigraphy).

Version: (e502a7a), last modified (25c6f3e).

Edition

I. Anuṣṭubh

⟨1⟩ tena yajñavarāheṇa

a

bhaktyā vāgīśvarīnimā

b

⟨2⟩ vidyāgurudvayasyāpi

c

sthāpitā sthitivedinā

d

Apparatus

Translation

I
That [same] Yajñavarāha, knower of what is established [practice], installed a statue of Sarasvatī out of devotion to both (api) his two teachers of knowledge.

Translation into French by Finot et al. 1926

I
Yajñavarāha, qui connaît la stabilité, a établi pieusement une statue de Vāgīśvarī et celles de deux Vidyāguru.

Commentary

Finot’s French translation suggests that there were statues of both of Yajñavarāha’s professors, which is perhaps not impossible, but there is only one word for statue, namely nimā, which is singular and in compound with vāgīśvarī°. It seems therefore worth recording the possibility, as my English translation attempts, that there was only one statue, of Sarasvatī (who tends to be called Vāgīśvarī in Śaiva contexts), erected out of devotion to or in honour of two teachers. As for the use of the term vidyāguru, it might be to distinguish these figures from other sorts of guru, for instance from Yajñavarāha’s initiator (dīkṣāguru). Archeological evidence on the site might reveal how many images were in fact installed there .

Bibliography

First edited from EFEO estampage n. 426 by Finot with translation into French and commentary (1926). Re-edited here from the same estampage by Dominic Goodall.

Primary

[LF] Finot, Louis, Henri Parmentier and Victor Goloubew. 1926. Le temple d'Içvarapura (Bantāy Srĕi, Cambodge). Mémoires archéologiques 1. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient. [URL]. Pages 70, 92, 107.