Epigraphia Indica Vol 24

SR No.: 032578
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hirananda Shastri
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1937
Total Pages: 472
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 22 MB

Page 253

208
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
during the Kushan period. The Mathura Museum contains no less than six heads of statues1 wearing the high conical hata hich are an essential part of the Scythian dress. In my opinion, these facts give additional weight to the suggestion that the female statue from Mōrā. also represents some lady belonging to a clan of the foreign invaders.
1.[v]..
2 sa[s]ya(1)
3 [vas] (3)
4 [p] [pa] Śiva(3).
VII.-Inscription on a door-jamb from Mathură.
The inscription is engraved on the side of a carved door-jamb dug out of an old well in the Mathura Cantonments in 1913 and is now in the Mathura Museum. The inscription consists of 12 lines, but the first five lines are so much obliterated that only here and there a letter can be made out with more or less certainty. Each line consisted of nine or ten aksharas, of which four or five on the right side are missing. From an examination of the stone Mr. Ramaprasad Chanda came to the conclusion, which undoubtedly is correct, that the epigraph was originally incised on a square pillar which was afterwards cut lengthwise through the inscribed side into two halves and turned into door-jambs. The inscription was first noticed in the Annual Progress Report of the Superintendent, Hindu and Buddhist Monuments, Northern Circle, for the year ending 31st March, 1917, p. 102, and edited by Ramaprasad Chanda, MASI. No. 5, pp. 169-173, and Plates XXV and XXVI.
5 shapu[t]r[e]na Kausi (")
6 Vasuna bhaga[va] (to Vasude)- (5)
[VOL. XXIV.
TEXT.
7 vasya mahasthāna..
. (śai)-(*)
8 lam toranam ve(dika cha prati)-(") 9 shṭhāpito () prito [bha](gavän Väsu)-(*)
10 devaḥ svāmi[sya] (mahakshatra)-(10) 11 pasya Soḍa[sa](sya)
.. (1)
12 samvartayatām(12)
NOTES.
(1) Sasya is distinct, and as we should expect the inscription to begin with the date, the first line is probably to be restored as svamisya mahakshatrapasya Soda-. The subscript va visible in the first line may have belonged to sramisya. (2) The second akshara of this line is sa with an indistinct vowel-sign. The preceding akshara looks like va. Considering that probably the date stood in this line, vas. is possibly to be restored as divase. (3) The reading of the first and third aksharas of this line is by no means certain. (Pra)pautrena would be in keeping with the context, but what is visible of the letters can hardly be reconciled with that reading. The fourth akshara of the line is si followed by an akshara that probably is a va of the same shape as in devah in 1. 10 and samvartayatām in 1. 12, but it may be ma. (4) The first akshara is clearly sha and to the right of it below the line there is a distinct pu, so that at first sight one might read shpu. However, there seems to be no connecting line between sha and pu,
1G 32, Add. 1252 (from the village of Mat), 1519, 1566 (from Påll Khera), 1567, 2122. Two of them are figured in Vogel's Sculpture de Mathura, Plate IV; cf. p. 23; 92.
This report is not accessible to me.