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

Editors: Anonymous editor.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSEIAD00003.

Language: Prakrit.

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

Version: (9fa90aa), last modified (35386f0).

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⟩ Sankaranarayanana • 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 Sankaranarayanana. — ⟨2⟩ -vihara- ⬦ -vihāra- Sankaranarayanana. — ⟨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. Sankaranarayanana (n. 10) proposes instead gaṁ(jikūṭavathavasa vaṇijakasa), after EIAD 2, ll. 4-5.

⟨3⟩ v(ā)ṇijakehi ⬦ vaṇijakehi Sankaranarayanana. — ⟨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 Sankaranarayanana • 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 Khan1969, Venkataramanayya1969c, and Sankaranarayanana. 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

Srinivasan1979a

Tsukamoto1996

Hanumantha_Rao1998

Raghunath2001

Notes

  1. 1. We follow here one of the suggestions offered by Sankaranarayanana, 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.