Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

II.-Hathigumpha Inscription of the Emperor Kharavela

[Corrections]

By K. P. Jayaswal, M.A. (Oxon.)

These corrections to my readings of the text (J.B.O.R.S., 1917, Vol. III, 425ff., revised, 1918, Vol. IV, 364ff.) are based on a second study on the rook itself in 1919, and a rereading from the cast in plaster and two fresh impressions in paper at the Patna Museum in 1924 and in 1927 (June-August). The corrections of 1927 relate to one word each in lines 1, 8, 14 and 16 and to lines 7, 11 and 15, marked in the text with (1927)." All the others were fixed in 1919 and 1924 jointly by Mr. R. D. Banerji and myself. As there were passages read by me on the rock which could hardly be reproduced in paperimpressions, I wanted that another scholar should also examine those passages on the site. Sir Edward Gait, the then President of the Bihar and Oris: a Research Society and the Governor of the Province, who extended every help from the very beginning towards bringing to light the data of this lithic history, kindly arranged a deputation of Mr. R. D. Banerji, Superintendent of Archæological Survey, Western Circle (Bombay), to Khandagiri with me. We verified the reading of every letter from the scaffolding, completing it on the 1st November, 1919. We checked the reading in 1924 at the Patna Museum with the help of the new materials there, described below.

On my return in 1918 I proposed that a cast of the inscription should be taken and brought to the Patna Museum. Sir Edward ordered this. The order was executed by the late Mr. H. Pandey, Assistant Superintendent of Archaeological Survey, Eastern Circle. Mr. Pandey had accompanied me to Khandagiri in my first journey and had become familiar with the rock and its problems. The cast generally is as successful as possible in view of the difficulties of the original. Two impressions in paper were made for the Museum. These impres

sions on the whole are better than the one I relied upon in 1917. They were prepared by Mr. Madhosarup Vats, at present the Officiating Superintendent, Archaeological Survey, Northern Circle.

Before sending the paper to the press I examined once more the difficult passages which led to certain further corrections specially noted below. The whole text thus stands re-read. The portions beyond the corrections should be taken as confirmed by our joint examination.

One of the paper estampages of the Patna Museum is published here from photographs, with portions of important passages from the other estampage, e.g. the Bahasati-mitam passage. They will serve as good supplements to the plates already published in this Journal (1917 and 1918). The importance of the record and the special passages require the reproduction of these additional plates. I am thankful to the Curator of the Patna Museum (Rai Saheb Manoranjan Ghosh) for supplying me with the photographs of the impressions and for facilities generally at the Museum.

[blocks in formation]

(6) Maha-megha. Compare the spelling of the same title, reading mahāR in the Manchpuri cave inscription of the same family (E.I., XIII. 160).

(c) This correction is important as identifying the dynasty of Kharavela beyond doubt. I owe it to Dr. Sten Konow who requested me to see if a trace of 'i' vowel-mark, as suggested by my first plate, was actually to be found. I found it to exist and the form Cheti was accepted (Acta Orientalia, I. 38).

Cheti stands for Chedi, the well-known Vedic and classical ruling family. This branch of the Chedis seems to have migrated into Orissa from Maha-kosa la as the Oriya manuscript (J.B.O.R.S., III. 482) suggests. We do find the Chedis in Mahakosala in later history. It is certain that one of the seats of the Chedis was near about Orissa in very ancient times.

A learned Jaina Yati1 from Western India, introduced to me by Rai Bahadur Puran Chand of Calcutta, read from a manuscript to me that in Orissa a Kshatriya friend of the father of the Mahavira was ruling and the Mahavîra went there.' Thus the Jaina tradition regards Orissa as a Kshatriya centre as early as the sixth century B.C.

Aira. This term, which is the first of the titles of the kings of this family (E.I., XIII. 160), I take to be of dynastic significance. I formerly took it as denoting the Aryan race of the king and in this I have been followed by Konow. That explanation may yet turn out to be correct in a distant sense, ie, the word Arya may be ethnologically connected with its original. I am inclined to take it to be a term denoting the descent of the Chedi kings-aira, a descendant of Irā or Дļā and propose to identify it with the Puranic Aila, one of the main dynastic divisions to which the Chedis do belong according to the Purāņas. The form Aira suggests that the original form was not Aila but Aira or Aila. Here in this inscription we probably have the oldest form of the dynastic term. This datum, if my interpretation is right, is a valuable confirmation of the Puranic tradition. (See the note at the end.)

The

(d) The cast gives this reading with certainty. vowel-marks to land th and the legs of t are thin but clearcut. They are discernible even in my first plate. I regret that I missed the full shape of the last two letters when I looked up the first akshara (lu) for Dr. Konow (4.0., I. p. 38). At Acharya Sagarānanda, at present at Ananda-sagara, Udaipur, Rajputa na. He by a letter refers to the Harithadriyā-vṛitti published by the Agamodays Samiti, pp. 218-220.

2 Pargiter, J.R.A.S., 1910, pp. 11, 26.

the time of writing this note I re-examined the whole word (1927). The meaning of the passage should be corrected as follows: " possessed of virtues which have reached the four ends (quarters)". 1

(a) Yovaraja [m]

(6) Vadhamiana-sesayo

Venābhi-vijayo

Line 2.

[blocks in formation]

(3) Here there is really no new reading because formerly I had read yove°, but the meaning was not correctly given and ve was supposed to have been a mistake for va. But as I am sure now that a misspelling is not to be easily assumed in this record, I group the letters differently, which gives a new and better meaning justifying the spelling as we find it in the inscription. vadhamānasesayo is equal to vardhamanafaisavaḥ, i.e., one who has been prosperous (even in, or, since, his) boyhood (saisava is the period up to the sixteenth year), or, with a pun on the first word, " one who was like (Prince) Vardhamana in his boyhood." Venābhivijayo a conqueror like Vena (having conquests as large as those of Vena). Vena is a Vedic personality (Rv. X. 123). According to Manu (Ch. IX. 66-7), King Vena had the whole earth (country) under his rule; under him the law of Niyoga was abolished, as being a law of beasts; he was the chief among rājarshis but he caused confusion (or abolition) of castes. It is noteworthy that the Padma Purāņa also says that Vena began his reign well but subsequently became a Jaina. From the Hathīgumpha inscription we get an indirect confirmation of the Padma Purāņa in so much that Vena who has not got throughout a good reputation in the Brahmiuical tradition, had a thoroughly good reputation amongst the Jainas as an ideal king. If amongst the Jainas at the period when the inscription was written Vena had been regarded as a bad king towards the end of his career, the comparison would not have been adopted in praise of Khāravela.

1 On chaturamta, see Thomas, J.R.A,S., 1922 p. 84,

« PreviousContinue »