Kanheri Cave 98 Cistern Inscription

Editor: Kelsey Martini.

Identifier: DHARMA_INSKI00081.

Hand description:

Language: Middle Indo-Aryan.

Repository: Satavahana (tfb-satavahana-epigraphy).

Version: (96d125e), last modified (b971f36).

Edition

⟨1⟩ [sidhaṃ kali](A)ṇikāya bhoIgiy(ā)A ⟨2⟩ [pava](I)takāya dāmilāya leṇaṁ ⟨3⟩ [po](ḍhi) ca kaṇhasele deyadhamaṁ<svastikaLeft>

Apparatus

⟨1⟩ bhoIgiy(ā)A ⟨2⟩ [pava](I)takāya ⬦ bhoĪgiy(ā) A[pa]rāṃtikāya B+B; bhoĪgiy(ā) A[pa]rāṃtikāya G; bhoĪgiy(ā) pavajitikāya N • The restorations of B+B and G are simply impossible (as is B+B’s following statement that “The epithets Bhoīgiya Aparāṃtikāya, of course, mean that the husband of Dāmilā was Bhojaka, i.e. the ruler, of the Koṇkaṇ.”) while the latter reading ignores the very present °a at the end of l. 1 (and the akṣara preceding -takāya is likely °i not ja; cf. l. 1). Given that this is in the same cave (no. 98) as the following KI082 whose donor is one bhikhuṇiya dāmilāya we expect one of the epithets here to indicate a monastic status, hench the restoration [pava](I)takāya (which was inspired by Nagaraju’s faulty reading).

Translation

A cave and cistern on Kaṇhasela, the meritorious gift of the renunciant Dāmilā, a bhoĪgiy[ā] of Kalyan.

Commentary

West says that “about five letters in the first line, three in the second, and two in the third, peeled off”.

Bibliography

Primary

[B+B] Burgess, James and Georg Bühler. 1883. Report on the Elura cave temples and the Brahmanical and Jaina caves in Western India: Completing the results of the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons' operations of the Archaeological survey, 1877–78, 1878–79, 1879–80. Vol. 5. Archaeological Survey of Western India. London: Trübner & Co. Page 84, item 24.

[N] Nagaraju, S. 1981. Buddhist Architecture of Western India (c. 250 B.C.- c. A.D. 300). Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan. Page 336, item 44.

[G] Gokhale, Shobhana. 1991. Kanheri inscriptions. Pune: Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute. Page 147, item 54.

Secondary

Stein, Otto. 1933. “Formal Elements in Indian Inscriptions.” Indian Historical Quarterly 9, pp. 215–226. Page 226 fn. 30.

Naik, A. V. 1948. “Inscriptions of the Deccan: an epigraphical survey (Circa 300 B.C.-1300 A.D.)” Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 9 (1/2), pp. 1–160. [URL]. Pages 19, 22–23.

Lamotte, Etienne. 1958. Histoire du bouddhisme indien: des origines à l'ère Śaka. Bibliothèque du Muséon 43. Louvain: Université catholique de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste. Page 568.

Ray, Himanshu Prabha. 1986. Monastery and guild: Commerce under the Sātavāhanas. Delhi: Oxford University Press. [URL]. Page 61.

Njammasch, Marlene. 1992. “Herrschaftsstrukturen und politische Konzepte im Śātavāhanareich (2. Jh. u. Z.)” Altorientalische Forschungen 19 (1), pp. 107–112. Page 110.

Shah, Kirit K. 2001. The Problem of Identity: Women in Early Indian Inscriptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page 53.

Ollett, Andrew. 2018. “Sātavāhana and Nāgārjuna: Religion and the Sātavāhana state.” JIABS 41, pp. 421–472. [URL]. Pages 434, 438.