Substrate Siddham ID: OB00058
Material stone (sandstone) Object type slab
Dimensions width 40 cm height 23 cm depth ?
Discovery 1923, built into the inner face of the east wall of Mandsaur fort Current location Gujri Mahal Museum, Gwalior (on exhibit)
Inscription Siddham ID: IN00064
Dimensions width 38 cm height 20 cm Char size 0.5–0.7 cm Line height 1–1.5 cm
Date CE 467–468 Basis of dating dated Mālava 524 expired (l11) Topic construction of a stūpa, a well, a water dispensary and a rest-house Persons mentioned Candragupta (II), Govindagupta, Vāyurakṣita, Dattabhaṭa, Prabhākara, Ravila Places mentioned Lokottara monastery
Compendia Bh List 7; SI III.52A; GKA 349–351; IGE 39; IBI 108.Mandasor.1 Other editions Garde 1948
Description
The inscribed stone is an intact slab 40 centimetres wide by 23 tall. Its thickness has not been reported and cannot be measured at present. It was discovered by M. B. Garde in the summer of 1923, at which time it was built into the inner face of the east wall of the mediaeval fort at Mand-saur, which incorporates many cut stones from earlier periods. It is now exhibited in the Gujri Mahal Museum of Gwalior. A considerable time after reporting its discovery (ARASI 1922–23, 187) in very little detail, Garde eventu-ally published the edition of the text (Garde 1948). Here I re-edit it from Garde’s rubbing and photographs of the original stone taken in January 2017.
The inscribed area is about 38 centimetres wide and 20 centimetres high. The epigraph consists of fifteen lines spaced slightly irregularly, 1 to 1.5 centimetres one below the other. The lines are straight and the margins on the left and right are also mostly straight and perpendicular to the lines.
Character bodies are 5 to 7 millimetres tall; horizontally, the characters are crowded very close to each other. The inscribed surface is smooth and polished, but now worn in places. The engraving is quite shallow and is thus not quite clear in the weathered regions, but on the whole the inscrip-tion is in a very good condiinscrip-tion except that the slab has been smeared with cement along the edges, which obscures parts of the text especially at the bottom and the right-hand side.
Script and Language
The alphabet is the rounded variety of the Mālavan script.
Most characters have triangular headmarks, some of which
are flattened into serifs. Initial a as well as ra and ka have long stems with a hook at the bottom. Ma and ṇa are looped; subscript ṇa has a cursive ornamental form with a curling tail (°rṇṇavā, l9). Ya is tripartite, usually with a loop on the left limb, though the loop is not always closed. The tail of la is extended backwards above the body but does not curve down in front of the character. Bha is broad, while ca is quite broad in outline, but generally triangular with a pronounced beak. Da is double-curved and quite broad.
No specimen of tha is quite clear, but there seem to be a smaller circle inside the lower part of the body rather than just a dot or a cross-stroke.88 Dha is vaguely elliptical, but the bottom is usually narrowed and can be quite pointed.
Ga and śa are both rounded; the former has a headmark, but the latter does not. Initial i is a double arch over two dots, while initial u is a mirror image of ra. Vowel marks for ā, e and o are usually horizontal, bending down at a ninety-degree angle, but may also be oblique. Lo is cursive and le has the mātrā inside the curve of the consonant, but other consonants including m and ṇ attach vowel marks at the head. Medial i is a closed circle, while ī looks like a circle with a vertical line in the middle of its lower part, probably formed as a spiral continuation of the outer circle.
The script includes jihvāmūlīya (which resembles ma in shape, e.g. duxkha l1), but there is no upadhmānīya; instead, regular visarga is consistently used before labials (e.g.
bhuvaḥ patīnāṃ, l3). The halanta form of m is slightly smaller and simpler in shape than a regular ma; it is lowered, and consistently has a line above it. Punctuation marks in the
88 Bose (Bose 1938, 329) deems the thas of this inscription to be a transitional stage between the form with a crossbar and the one with a ringlet inside the bottom of the body.
A5 Mandsaur Inscription of Dattabhaṭa 77
Figure 16: Mandsaur inscription of Dattabhaṭa. Inked rubbing from Garde (1948).
Figure 17: Mandsaur inscription of Dattabhaṭa. Composite digital photo by the author, 2017. Courtesy of Gujri Mahal Museum, Gwalior.
A5 Mandsaur Inscription of Dattabhaṭa 79
shape of short horizontal lines (sometimes slightly convex on top) occasionally appear at the ends of both half and full stanzas, but their usage is inconsistent. They never appear after a halanta m, so it seems that the line above that charac-ter doubles as a punctuation mark. They are also rarely used in conjunction with a visarga, but occasionally do appear after one. The very end of the inscription is marked with a double vertical sign. The horizontal punctuation marks are transcribed in my edition as a single daṇḍa, and the double vertical closer as a double daṇḍa.
Consonants are, as expected, doubled after r, but gemination does not take place before r except one case of bbhr in line 13, which curiously stands right next to a single bhr in the phrase śubhro bbhra. Anusvāra use is close to standard, with a slight preference for nasal con-juncts (for instance °ādiṅ guṇa, l6; sambhāvayāṃ, l8;
sveṣām balānāṃ, l8; śītalañ ca, l10; vaṅśa, l11) which seems to be random (compare nirmmalaṃ ca a few words after śītalañ ca and vaṃśya in l3 as opposed to vaṅśa).
Likewise, sibilants are occasionally preferred to visarga (tanayais sarūpam l4, pratāpaiś śirobhir l4). The language is standard Sanskrit, correctly and confidently used even where the syntax is complex. The use of the middle perfect form prajajñe (l4) is not quite standard:89 one would expect a causative in periphrastic perfect, which the composer does use elsewhere (janayāṃ babhūva, l7). The inscrip-tion is in verse throughout (except for siddham at the beginning and the two-word “signature” of the composer at the end). The poetry is of good quality and bespeaks technical skill in poetic devices (alaṃkāra of śabda and artha) without overdoing them. It may be worth noting that in verse 17 caesurae are slurred in vowel saṃdhi in the odd quarters. The stanza is in the pṛthvī metre, in which some poets do not use a caesura at all. In this particular case, however, the yatis are clear-cut in the even quarters, so the poet probably did observe the caesura in this metre, yet found a saṃdhi fusion acceptable at this point.90
Commentary
The subject of the inscription is the dedication of a stūpa accompanied by a well, a drinking fount or water dis-pensary (prapā) and a lodging house for wayfarers or pil-grims (ārāma). It is often referred to as an inscription of (the time of) Prabhākara, who appears to have been the
89 Sircar (1965b, 407 n. 1) also notes this is not quite correct and cites some parallels from inscriptions.
90 I have written elsewhere about the phenomenon of the slurred caesura (Balogh 2017). See also Ghosh (1978) for the caesura in pṛthvī.
reigning monarch at the time in Daśapura91 and is also sometimes simply called the Mandsaur inscription of Mālava Saṃvat 524, but I prefer to name it after Datta-bhaṭa, the person who commissioned it.
The text begins with an invocation to the Buddha (referred to as sugata). The word tripadiro, said of the doc-trine (dharma) taught by the Buddha, is problematic. As Garde (1948, 15 n. 4) observes, it is “an unfamiliar” word in Sanskrit and suggests for comparison the allegedly attested word chaddhātura. Sircar (1965b, 406 and n. 4) suggests the emendation tripadiko, which is more than plausible, as it allows us to read a regularly derived word at the cost of assuming only that a small cross-stroke was omitted by the engraver. I cannot, however, exclude the possibil-ity that we are facing a Prakritism, though this would be passing unusual as the whole of the inscription attests to a good command of standard Sanskrit. As Tsukamoto (1996, 637) points out, ira is a common Prakrit dialectal suffix forming words that mean something that has the root word as its characteristic.92 Whatever the intended spelling, the meaning is clearly that dharma has or consists of three padas, which Garde (ibid.) translates “consisting of three steps (stages)” and further comments that these may mean the three śaraṇas (buddha, dharma and saṅgha), or three stages on the path to Nirvāṇa (sotāpatti, sakadāgāmi and anāgāmi), or else the three principles anitya, duḥkha and anātman. Sircar (ibid.) endorses the first of Garde’s sug-gested interpretations, with the slight difference that he sees the dharma as standing on these three, which implies that he understands pada as “leg.” However, the logical hitch in the claim that one of the dharma’s legs or compo-nents is the dharma itself rules this interpretation out in my opinion. Nor do the three stages leading up to the stage of arhat seem very likely. I do, however, find Garde’s third suggestion quite plausible. I believe, in addition, that pada in tripadika is more likely to mean “word” than “stage” or
“leg,” and the lakṣaṇas of anitya, duḥkha and anātman are three simple keywords that sum up the Buddhist doctrine clearly.93 My interpretation and translation are offered ten-tatively, inviting experts on Buddhism to improve on them.
91 His identity is discussed separately on page 81 below.
92 §596 in Pischel’s Prakrit Grammar (1900, 404, 1957, 408 in Jha’s English translation).
93 A story in the Nibbānakaṇḍa of the Sīmavisodhanīpāṭha, an extra-canonical text, tells of a prince who offered a reward to someone who can teach the dharma in no more than four padas (ekapadikaṃ vā dvipadikaṃ vā tipadikaṃ vā catuppadikaṃ vā dhammapadaṃ jānantassa). The summary he eventually receives (while plummeting, as it happens, from a high cliff into the mouth of a wise but hungry rākṣasa to whom he has offered his flesh in exchange for the teaching) is expressed in the form of a verse (gāthā) of four quarters. The moral
The second and third stanzas introduce and describe the Gupta emperor Candragupta II. He is praised in general terms, but the description of the outcome of his conquests may have a barb in it. It is hard to believe that the state-ment “[Candragupta] so fettered the earth with the fetters of his progeny that even today she [the earth] cannot attain deliverance” was indited out of heartfelt admiration.94 More likely the poet, and possibly his king Prabhākara too, was unhappy with Candragupta’s progeny in control of their corner of the earth. Verses 4 and 5 imply that this progeny was Govindagupta, who is also described here as a great conqueror. He is said to resemble the sons of Diti and Aditi (dityadityos tanayais sarūpam, l4) i.e. the demons and the gods. Garde (1948, 16 n. 3) notes that he would have resembled the former in physical strength and the latter in spiritual virtues, but again, the inscription does not actually say that in so many words, so one is left to wonder whether this is a veiled hint at Govindagupta’s demonic aspect.
Verse 6 introduces Vāyurakṣita, the ever victorious general of Govindagupta, while the seventh verse praises him without saying anything particular. The next stanza describes the birth of Vāyurakṣita’s son Dattabhaṭa from a princess of a northern dynasty (udīcyabhūbhṛtkula
candrikāyāṃ … rājaputryāṃ, l6). There is, unfortunately, no further information about the origin of this princess.
Dattabhaṭa’s generosity, intelligence and martial and amorous exploits are praised in verse 9, and verse 10 tells us that king Prabhākara appointed Dattabhaṭa to be his general. Prabhākara is likened to a forest fire burning up trees that are the enemies of the Gupta dynasty,95 which not only indicates that he owed fealty to the Guptas, but also strongly implies that he was a willing vassal. See page 81 for further discussion of Prabhākara.
of the story, for my present purposes, is that pada may also mean a unit of speech larger than a word. My thanks to Gergely Hidas for pointing to this story.
94 nādyāpi mokṣaṃ samupaiti yena svavaṃśyapāśair avapāśitā bhūḥ, l3. The phrasing is reminiscent of verse 2 of the Mehrauli iron pillar inscription of Candra, all but certainly in praise of Candragupta II and also written posthumously (śāntasyeva mahāvane hutabhu
jo yasya pratāpo mahān nādyāpy utsṛjati praṇāśitaripor yyatnasya śeṣaḥ kṣitim, l4). There, however, it is a remnant of the king’s own efforts that does not release the earth, likened to the residual heat after a forest fire has died down.
95 Interestingly, the phrase guptānvayāridrumadhūmaketuḥ (l8) very strongly resembles kopasya nandakulakānanadhūmaketoḥ in verse 1.9 of the Mudrārākṣasa where Cāṇakya’s anger is said to be a fire to the forest that is the Nanda family, i.e. the dynastic enemy of Candragupta Maurya whom Cāṇakya serves as advisor. Dhūmaketu, literally “smoke-crested,” is a common kenning for fire, but the use of the same term in a similar metaphor still suggests intertextuality.
The eleventh verse reveals that Dattabhaṭa had a well constructed out of gratitude toward his departed parents, whose salvation (śubhayoga, literally “union with the auspicious”) he desires to promote. The stūpa, water dis-pensary and rest-house are only briefly listed in verse 11 as accompanying the well, which is the grammatical subject of a sentence that continues all through the next verse, a eulogy to the well’s water.
Stanza 13 records the number of elapsed years as five hundred increased by three times eight, the complicated expression probably serving no other function than to fill out the metre of the verse. The date is by the Mālava reck-oning, and this is expressed by saying that the host of elapsed years proclaim the glory of the Mālava dynasty.
The month and day are not specified. Instead, verses 14–15 describe the season, which is probably the spring as both Garde (1948, 13) and Sircar (1965b, 409 n. 1) observe. To this it might be added that it seems to include characteristics of both ends of the spring spectrum: while tender lotus buds and renewed forests with young leaves suggest the end of winter, the crying cuckoos and the women pining for their lovers (who have been away on long errands but must return before the beginning of the rains) are more sug-gestive of the beginning of the hot season. The reference to the pleasantness of sal trees may also be an indication of late spring. As best I could ascertain, these trees blossom at the end of spring, being briefly covered by a frothy mass of small, scented flowers. In drier areas they also shed their leaves by the end of winter and grow new foliage at the end of spring. The description of the spring is thus not intended to refer to any particular time within that season.
Verse 16 states that the stūpa is dedicated to the Buddha. At this point, the stūpa is spoken of as primary and the well as an accompaniment to it, as opposed to verses 11–12 above. The word for stūpa is dhātudhara,96
“holder of a relic,” and the description of the Buddha uses the word dhātu twice more, exploiting its polyvalence:97 yo dhātumātre hatadhātudoṣaḥ sarvvakriyāsiddhim uvāca (l13). Garde translates “who, having overcome the evil influences of all the elements, explained (preached) the accomplishment of all actions,” to which his editor (prob-ably B. C. Chhabra, perhaps L. N. Rao) adds that this refers to the Nidānasūtra where the Buddha taught the theory of cause and effect (Garde 1948, 17 and n. 5). Tsukamoto (1996, 638) understands the phrase to mean that the Buddha eliminated elements (dhātu) of error (doṣa) that are present in all bodies (dhātu), which Kano (2017, 36) elaborates,
96 See note to line 13 of the text.
97 See (Edgerton 1953, 282–84) for an overview of meanings in var-ious contexts.
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pointing out that dhātudoṣa refers to a pathological con-dition of the body. In my own view, the idea expressed here is that the Buddha succeeded in overcoming the failings of the physical substrate even while existing in nothing but a physical substrate. Note that dhātumātre is a bahu
vrīhi compound (since mātrā is normally feminine), so it must be understood as qualifying an object that needs to be supplied, such as the body (e.g. śarīre) or perhaps the physical world (e.g. jagati). In my translation of the inscription I have chosen to understand dhātumātre as referring to a body consisting of the physical elements, and dhātudoṣa as the erroneous perception of the six senses which must be replaced with a correct understanding.98 Sticking to this interpretation of dhātumātre, it would also be possible to understand dhātudoṣa as the flaws of this sphere of existence or of the human character. Along a different line, the intended meaning may have been that the Buddha eliminated the ill effects of the basic elements right down at the stage of the basic elements, that is, by not letting them proliferate into various consequences.99 This, or a similar interpretation, is probably what Garde’s editor had in mind when he wrote that the text implicitly referred to the pratītya samutpāda. The question is by no means closed and should be explored by scholars of Bud-dhism. Another fine point in this stanza is that the word kriyā should probably be understood not in a general sense (success in mundane activities not being a primary objec-tive of the Buddha’s teaching), but specifically as “ritual action.” Ritual actions include the establishment of stūpas, and the fact that the building of this particular stūpa is indicated by the word kṛto in this stanza is probably what connects the two halves of the verse: not only was a stūpa consecrated to the Buddha, but the consecration itself was a ritual act such as those taught by the Buddha.
The seventeenth verse expresses the donor’s wish that the well last as long as the ocean. There is probably some degree of double entendre (śleṣa) in its words that may qualify either the well or the ocean, but the extent and precise details of this are uncertain. Garde’s interpre-tation is that the ocean “enjoys the constant festivity of union with many rivers [who are, as it were,] his wives,”
and the well likewise enjoys union with “the bodies of many women [who go to bathe there].” Garde’s editor in Epigraphia Indica (Garde 1948, 17 n. 6; probably B. C.
Chhabra) opines that kṣayī also has a double meaning. He explains that kṣaya can mean consumption (presumably tuberculosis), which is believed to result from overindul-gence in sexual pleasure, and that the ocean is a well-98 As listed in Saṃyuttanikāya 35.1.1-3.
99 As discussed in Saṃyuttanikāya 14.1.1-10.
known exception from this. I have adopted this thought, changing tuberculosis to “the clap,” which may not be a medically accurate translation of kṣaya but is more likely to be a consequence of promiscuity. It is possible that kṣayī is the only śliṣṭa word in the stanza, since
known exception from this. I have adopted this thought, changing tuberculosis to “the clap,” which may not be a medically accurate translation of kṣaya but is more likely to be a consequence of promiscuity. It is possible that kṣayī is the only śliṣṭa word in the stanza, since