गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS; No. 70, PLATE XL D. 273
TRANSLATION.
This (is) the appropriate religious gift of the Mahâvihârasvâmin Haribala. And
this image has been fashioned by Dinê .. mâśvara (?)
No. 70; PLATE XL D.
MATHURA STONE IMAGE INSCRIPTION.
THE YEAR 230.
THIS inscription was discovered by General Cunningham, and was first brought to notice
in 1871, in the Jour. R. As. Soc. N. S. Vol. V. p. 185, where Professor J. Dowson pub-
lished his reading of the text, and a translation of it, accompanied by a lithograph (id.
Plate ii. No. 9) reduced from General Cunningham's ink-impression.—And this rendering
of the inscription was reprinted, with a few corrections, in 1873, in the Archæol. Surv. Ind.
Vol. III. p. 37, accompanied by a fresh lithograph (id. Plate xvi. No. 23).
This is another inscription from Mathurâ,¹ the chief town of the Mathurâ District
in the North-West Provinces; and is on the pedestal of a stone standing statue of Bud-
dha, draped, and with a nimbus behind his head and shoulders, that was found in the
Katrâ² mound. When I examined it, it was in the Government Museum at Allahâbâd;
but it is now, I understand, in the Provincial Museum at Lucknow.
The writing, which covers a space about 1' 4½" broad by 2" high on the upper part
of the face of the pedestal, is in a state of fairly good preservation.—The average size of
the letters is about ⅜". The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets.
They include, in line 2, forms of the numerical symbols for 30 and 200. In the rya of
bhaṭṭâyâr-yad, line 1, we have to notice that the r is formed on the line of writing, with
a single y below it. And the same method of forming the r is followed in dharmô and
rjaya, though not in sarvva, in the same line.—The language is Saṁskṛit; and the whole
inscription is in prose.—The orthography presents nothing calling for remark.
The inscription does not refer itself to the reign of any king. But its date, in
numerical symbols, is the year two hundred and thirty (A.D. 549-50), without any fur-
ther details. It is a Buddhist inscription; and the object of it is to record the gift, by a
Śâkya female mendicant named Jayabhaṭṭâ, to a monastery called the Yaśôvihâra, of
the image on the pedestal of which it is engraved.
TEXT.³
1 Dêya-dharmo=yaṁ Yaśâ(śô)vihârê Śâkya-bhikshuṇyar-Jayabhaṭṭâyâr=
Yad⁴=atra puṇyaṁ tad=bhavatu sarvva-sa-
2 tvanam⁵=anuttara-jñân âvâptayê |(||) Saṁvatsaraḥ 200 30 |(।।),
¹ See page 26 above, and note 2. ² See page 26 above, note 1.
³ From the original stone. ⁴ Read bhikshuṇyâ Jayabhaṭṭâyâḥ || Yad.
⁵ Read sattvânâm.
2 M₂