By Harry Falk, Berlin
1. The plate of Vasa-Abdagases, dated Azes 9
A collection in Dubai includes a bronze plate, 28 cm in diameter, 7.5 cm high (figs. 1 and 2). The underside shows traces of a circular stand, once welded to it, but now lost. According to reliable information, the plate has its origins in the Buner area to the north-east of Peshawar. A spectrum analysis per¬
formed on a tiny sample showed that the metal is composed of 80% copper, substantial portions of tin and zinc, and traces of led and arsenic. 1 Some remnants of guilding are reported by the owner, which were invisible at the time of my visit.
Around its rim the plate is carefully inscribed in Kharosthï in 88 letters which form a perfect round (fig. 3). The beginning of the text can be defined safely from its contents, being the date formula. The end seems to be missing and may have been found on the now lost stand.
1 The exact percentage is: Cu 78,4; Zn 11,4; Sn 5,0; Pb 4,8; Fe 0,5; Ag 0,018; Ni 0,011;
As 0,009; Sb 0,002.
This text is remarkable for several reasons. Firstly, it presents us the earliest Azes date found so far, using the name of Azes to define the era, which is reasonably re¬
garded as being identical with the Vikrama era of 57 bc.
The earliest text mention¬
ing Azes known before dated from year 39. 2 This date pre¬
cedes a long list of donors of a stüpa reliquary written on a gold foil, coming, allegedly, from Hadda. Our new plate, however, goes back as far as Azes 9, a date certainly fall¬
ing into the lifetime of this prosperous king, who issued coins in great numbers in a multitude of series indicative of a very long rule. Thus, the plate would date from 48 bc.
The language of the text is the usual local Prakrit, with the single peculiarity
of using -siya instead of -sa.
Siya is certainly an attempt at being Sanskritic, equivalent to the locally common genitive m.n.sg. -sa, probably pronounced Issal, derived from the correct -sya. Apart from this pseudo-sanskritism, the text is in the language common to local Kharosthï documents of the time; it even retains the Prakritic -5^-genitive in the case of maharajasa.
These peculiarities are startling. It is tempting to consider the plate to be a forgery. However, the vocabulary is so unusual, and the present local knowledge of Prakrit and Kharosthï so limited, that any thoughts about it being a forgery should be dismissed. A study of the punch-holes of the let¬
ters likewise did not disclose any hint of a recent fabrication.
Fig. 3
2 Sadakata 1996, p. 306, vasaye 20 10 4 4 1 ayasa.
The text runs as follows, without any particular spacing between its vari¬
ous parts:
maharajasa mahatasiya ayasiya samvatsaraasiya 4 4 1 masasiya katiasiya 1 1 mahaksatravasiya mahapala suspala-putrasiya vasa-avakasasiya rájame ime bhagavato sakamunisiya dana sagamitraasiya
likhite ...
"In the year 9 of the maharaja Azes the Great, in month Kârttika (on day) 2;
during the reign of the Mahäksatrapa Vasa-Abdagases,son of Mahäpäla- Suspala, (this is) the present of Sanghamitra for the Lord, for the sage of the Säkya clan.
Written (by...)"
Palaeographic notes
With a date of Azes 9, the plate is one of the oldest pieces inscribed in Kharosthï after Asoka and the Indo-Greek coins. The script, in fact, is representative of a transition state midway between Asoka and what we are used to seeing in Apraca dedicatory inscriptions. Chronologically, we are dealing with the period between 250 bc and about 20 bc. Some letters are particularly interesting:
- The mu is of absolute Asokan type and has not yet started to change into the slanting shape. In Apraca inscriptions, the mu is always slant¬
ing. This seems to indicate that some decades before 20 bc old shapes were still in normal use.
- The -^-vocalisation on the plate generally is very traditional, being a short horizontal stroke to the left. In Apraca inscriptions it has changed to a loop. Very few texts are preserved from post-Asokan times show¬
ing this feature. On coins we find straight u-strokes in evukratitasa (Eucratides I, 171-145 bc) and in hipustratasa (Hippostrates, 65-55 bc).
On the epigraphical side we can cite the Päthyär inscription, where pu and vu are written this way; 2 Konow remarks that the "characters are of about the same type as in the Asoka inscriptions and may belong to the second or the beginning of the first century B.C." 3 A second exam¬
ple is the Karnäl inscription, 4 where the Asokan ^-horizontal is seen in pu, side by side with a completely opened sa. It is telling that both sites are east of Pakistan, one near Dharamsala and one in Karnul, north of Delhi. At the periphery of the distribution of Kharosthï some letter forms remained more archaic than elsewhere.
2 Vogel 1902-1903.
3 Konow 1929,p. 178.
4 Konow 1929,p. 179 no. 96.
- The nasal in sam appears like a postconsonantal ma in later hands. In Asokan Kharosthï the closing nasal was written in exactly this way, i.e.,
it looks like a small ma attached to the foot of the sign for the consonant.
In Apraca texts, such a final nasal is written as a halfmoon open to the left hanging from the lower end of the letter, whereas an attached ma - looking like our case - is used for a true postconsonantal ma, as e.g. in
hma of brahmana.
All this evidence shows that in 49 bc Kharosthï was still very similar to what Asoka had used 200 years earlier. However, only 30 years after our plate the script underwent great changes of an all encompassing type: postcon¬
sonantal -^-vowels are written in loops, mu is slanting, and syllable-final m was a half-circle open to the left side. All these changes can be explained by presupposing a boost in writing at this time, changing the use of writing from occasional to habitual. At the same time in Ceylon writing is used to fix the Theravada canon for the first time. 5 Earlier forms of writing are still preserved on the island, particularly for short donation records above the drip-ledges of caves in the jungle, where stone-masons retained the older shapes, while at the courts writing developed into more flowing forms.
It seems that all these changes occurred in the time-span between 48 and 20 bc, both in Gandhära and in Ceylon. This widespread boost in writing which could not have happened by accident, must be indicative of a general
change in the attitude towards writing, both in clerical as in administrative circles.
Historical notes a) Shared rule
Apart from the date the political situation behind this text seems to be worth considering. Azes was the absolute suzerain in this area at this time. In the date formula he is called maharaja mahata, as he calls himself on his coins.
The "reign", however, is defined as the one of Vasa-Abdagases, showing that here again we are facing a multilayered system of royalty, which can be best understood by looking at the coins. Side by side with those of the Aziles-Azes family, coins were issued by the seemingly unrelated Vonones
group of "Saka" kings. The inscriptions on the two sides of their coins show
a certain development:
Falk 1993,pp. 284-288.
a) Vonones is king of kings, his "faithful" (dharmika, dikaios) (first) brother Spalahora issues coins (Senior type 65).
b) Vonones is king of kings, Spalahora is probably dead when Spalahora's
"faithful" son Spalagadama issues coins (Senior type 67).
c) Vonones is king of kings, his "faithful" (second) brother Spalyris (genitive spalyrios in Greek spelling) is king, whose "faithful" nephew Spalagadama issues coins (Senior type 69).
d) Vonones is king of kings, his "faithful" brother Spalirisa issues coins alone (Senior types 70, 71).
e) Spalirisa is king, then king of kings (Senior types 72, 73); he is the first to introduce the Graeco-Bactrian letter sa, initially homomorphic with rho, later the loop sinks down to the midde of the vertical. The genitive is also changed from spalirios to spalirisou.
f) Spalirisa is "Great king" on the obverse, Azes is "Great king" on the reverse (Senior type 74).
g) Azes takes the whole of the Vonones possessions.
Step d) should not be taken as absolutely proven; the evidence - presented in Senior 2001, 1, p. 41 - is open to reasonable doubts. However, on the whole the development is clear:
Vonones had several sub-rulers, who all stress their "faithfulness", i.e.
not trying to assume more power than was allotted them by the suzerain.
When Azes finally incorporated Vonones' possessions, he seems to have granted some secondary power to the subdued extended family. According to the amount of preserved coins carrying Vonones' name on the obverse, Spalahora ruled long and Spalirises lost his independence very soon to Azes.
Only 9 years have passed since the last great king Spalirises lost the imperial power to Azes, who himself continues the system, allotting mah äks atrapa power to Mahäpäla-Suspala and his son Vasa-Abdagases according to our plate, which I connect to the old family in the service of Vonones because of the spala in the name of the father.
Spala is the West-Iranian variant of Iranian *spada, "army". Suspala 6 is thus equivalent to Susena, a name quite common in India, found also on petroglyphs in the upper Indus valley.
The governor's name is vasa-avakasa, certainly a compounded name, as in the case of the famous vaga-marega and his brother hasthunä-marega known from the two Wardak reliquaries, 7 or nada-diaka, kamuio-khala- masa, kusuluka-patika on the Mathura Lion capital. 8 They too are always
6 The ^-stroke consists of only one visible dot to the leftof the vertical.
7 Konow 1929,p. 170; Falk forthcoming.
8 Konow 1929, p. 48.
written in compounds. For vaga-marega, Bailey has suggested an Iranian etymology, *baga-maryaka, "servant of God", 9which would be comparable to Skt. devadäsa, a name found in the area repeatedly. 10 In our vasa-avakasa, the first part vasa has no parallels so far, the second name, however, is clearly the name usually written Abdagases in western sources and known to be a nephew of Gondophares in the middle of the first century ad. According to Tacitus, the Abdagases best-known to us lived ad 35, with a grown-up son named Sinnices (discussed in van Lohuizen/de Leeuw 1949, p. 358).
On his coins, this Abdagases occasionally points out his relationship to the maharaja Gondophares. Abdagases spells his name in very different ways, since all the "Sakas" and Kusänas faced great difficulties in transposing the pronunciation of their names into Indian scripts. It appears as havadagasa, havatagasa or avadagasa, where the bda of his Greek coin legends is seen to stand for Ivdal, which is dissolved into vada or vata. In our case the vda is simplified into Ivval, written va. An absolutely parallel avakasa is found on a reliquary, mentioning him as the son of the brother of Gondophares (gupharasa bhratuputrasa avakasasa) 11in the year 98 Azes, i.e. around ad 41.
Our Abdagases, however, shares the Kharosthï spelling with the Gondo¬
phares scion, but predates him by almost one hundred years.
There is another parallel to this reliquary text. On our plate, the era is counted in years of Azes - living and ruling -, but the "reign" is the local reign of the mahäksatrapa Vasa- Abdagases. On the reliquary, the era is still counted in years of Azes - long since deceased -, and the "reign" is given twice, once
"of Abdagases, son of the brother of Gondophares" (gupharasa bhaduputrasa avakasasa rajami), and "(I), stratega Aspavarman, son of Indravarman, in my reign" (imtravarmaputre stratee aspavarma me rajami). Here, the relative of Gondophares is king, but Aspavarman has no less the right to call his rule a
"reign", raja, Skt. räjya; several such reigns are thus not mutually exclusive.
Salomon (1974) has dealt with all occurrences of ksatrapa-ûûts known at that time, assuming that Rajuvula "must have coined the title mahäksatrapa himself" (17), "invented by him on the analogy of the Indie title maharaja' (24). Our plate shows that the title is older by at least half a century. Our new text may confirm Salomon's surmise that while the father is mahäksatrapa, the son is ksatrapa (17). Unfortunately, it uses only one title and we are left in the dark if apart from Mahäpäla-Suspala also Vara-Abdagases was re¬
garded as mahäksatrapa or simply as ksatrapa.
9 Bailey 1957, p. 66 fn. 42.
0 Falk in press.
1 Sadakala 1996, p. 308.
b) The background of Gondophares
After the Graeco-Bactrian kings we see the emergence of three new power¬
ful families in the first half of the first century bc:
- Maues, who married into a Greek family at Taxila. One of his issues dem¬
onstrates the direct links to royal blood mentioning his wife Machene (Senior type 4.1T). He has at least one son, Artemidoros (Senior type H13). This family succumbs - possibly peacefully - to Azes, who issues coins using some of Maues' designs to demonstrate the continuity.
- Vonones, of unknown extraction, carrying a name well-known from several members of the imperial Arsacid family in Iran. All those who refer to him as the basileos bear names formed with spala as the first part of a compound: spalahora, spalagadama, spalirisa. 12 As seen above, this family too succumbs - possibly peacefully - to Azes. Their last coins are common issues linking Spalirises and Azes.
- Azes and his predecessor Azilises.
The gathering of the power of all three families in the hands of Azes prob¬
ably took place in 58/57 bc, the beginning of the era of Azes, also known as the vikrama era. Coins in the name of Azes are issued long after his demise.
Senior 13 has shown that the Apracarajas in Bajaur can be regarded as his partial successors. The reliquaries donated to newly founded stüpas in the last decades bc by the Apraca kings and their family have long been the ear¬
liest evidence for the use of the Azes era. If not for them we would not know how to explain the vikrama era. It is not hard to imagine that the Apracas are direct decendants of the Azes family. Their king of renown is Vijayami- tra, ruling Bajaur for more than 30 years up to around ad 19. By his side was Indravarman, the stratega, who must have exercised royal power at least to some extent as can be seen from his seal ring, referring to him as king in two spellings in two scripts. 14
After Vijayamitra we have the short rule of Indravasu, who is the first to replace the name of Azes on the coins and use his own instead. The following ruler is Gondophares, regarded as an "Indo -Parthian" king in contrast to the
"Indo-Scythian" kings before him. His descent is debated and still without conclusive explanation; usually, some "Suren" family is referred to from clas¬
sical accounts, without any direct link to any person called Gondophares.
If similar personal names are indicative of family ties, as two of the three pedigrees above seem to suggest, then our avakasa in Azes 9 - whose
For one spalavera see Rapson 1905, p. 808.
Senior 2001,1, pp. 89-94.
Salomon/Callieri/Schmitt 1999.
father Suspala seems to be related to the Spalahora family in the service of Vonones - could very well be linked to the avakasa in Azes 98 - who is definitely related to Gondophares. This way, Gondophares seems to be related to the Vonones group, and our inscribed plate would show that the Gondophares family was related to the governors inside the Azes territory already at 48 bc. The so-called "Indo-Parthians" are then nothing else but the successors of Vonones, who was the hastieos megas behind Spalahora etc.
This Vonones may well have had family ties with the imperial Arsacid house of Iran. For those ruling in his name, however, this is much less likely.
In fact, all this makes perfect sense, doing away with the uncertainty as to the local origins of Gondophares: After the first two decades ad, where coins in the name of Azes are first getting debased and finally cease, Gon¬
dophares arises followed by Abdagases as kings (hastieos), as do Indravar- man and Aspavarman as army chiefs (stragega) from the Apraca family. That means, at the end of the long reign of Azes one of the royal houses that once gave way to Azes' suzerainty returns to the stage and supplies the sovereign, whereas the other, related to Azes by blood, retires into the second rank.
Since there is no replacement of the "Indo-Scythians", but rather a rear¬
rangement of two old families, we can understand why there is so much continuity apparent:
- Gondophares continues the Azes era;
- Apart from coins of clearly Iranian-Arachosian style, he also issues coins in Azes style.
- His nephew Abdagases and grand nephew Sases on the one hand and Aspavarman of Apraca stock on the other rule together and issue coins
distinguishable in many cases only by their names and titles.
20 years later, however, both families give way to a third party, the Kusänas.
Returning to our plate which was the starting point:
We know that the Apraca family guarded the transit way from the Peshawar valley and Swat to Nangahar through the Bajaur area. The reliquaries issued by members of this family have been the sole witnesses of the term "era of Azes" so far. With this plate, we have another piece of evidence linked to persons not necessarily part of the (future?) Apraca family, living some decades earlier in an area east of Bajaur. They are mahäks atrapas during the lifetime of Azes. From the Ksatrapa families in Gujarat and Malwa we are used to regarding a mah äks atrapa as equivalent to a mahäräja. This text, however, proves that in Gandhära the nobility came in at least three tiers:
a) the king, being mahäräja mah ata, then b) the mah äks atrapas, and finally
c) the ksatrapas, i.e. "ordinary" noblemen. Apart from merely presenting another mahdksatrapa with his son, this silver plate makes it apparent that the great kings of foreign descent like Azes did not rule alone. They had mah äks atrapas assisting them in the government.
Religious importance
A person of noble descent presents a costly metal plate. This is not a reli¬
quary to be interred in a stüpa, removed from view from the auspicious mo¬
ment onwards. This is a present to be used visibly, most likely in the worship of the sdkyamuni, referred to in the donation text itself. It can be used to receive donations of all sorts, or it can be used to present flowers to a statue reminiscent of the Buddha. Such precious plates in silver have been found in
a hoard near a temple at Sirkap, 15 which included plates with soldered bases comparable to our piece, but without the flat rim. 16
What is most remarkable in the inscription is that the plate is given not to the sañgha, but to the Buddha himself. In later times, presents mentioned in inscriptions in Gandhara are always for the sañgha, usually said to be catudisa, "of all the quarters". Here, however, we see that the Buddha is seen as the direct recipient of the donation, as he is a century and more later in Ajanta 17 and more clearly in the 5 th/6 th centuries in Bagh in Madhapradesh,
or Kuda in Maharasthra. 18 In his fundamental article, Schopen showed that the Vinaya of the Mülasarvästivädins contains many regulations on how to distribute donations in gold to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha 19 and that the shares given to the Buddha himself are meant to be deposited in the gandhakutï, the "perfume chamber", located by T. Bloch 20 in the mid¬
dle of an architectural construction containing a central hall and several side rooms or side caves in a row. The importance of the gandh akutï ior the do¬
nations to the Buddha was illustrated by Schopen. 21 Most likely, the plate presented by Vasa-Abdagases was meant to be used in a similar room, where the Buddha was thought to be present.
Marshall 1951,1, p. 156f.
Marshall 1951,II, p. 612 no. 8.
Schopen 1990, p. 260.
Schopen 1990, p. 260f.
Schopen 1990, p. 272 f.
Archaeological Surveyof India. AnnualReports 1908-1909, p. 154.
Schopen 1990, p. 276ff.
2. An incense-burner, dated (Kusana) year 24
The central room or cave of a Buddhist monastery, usually directly opposite the entrance, was certainly given its name gandhakutï because of the smell originating either from stored flowers or from burnt incense or both. Incense was kept in containers called
gandhakaranda. This term oc¬
curs on the Shâh-jï-kï-Dherï bronze reliquary, inadequately called the "Kaniska reliquary". 22 For fumigation, however, a real burner was used. At Taxila, e.g., incense-burners made from bronze or iron date from the Greek to the Parthian period;
they measure about 25 cm in length; their bowl at the end of a long handle rests on three legs. 23 A Gandhäran statue of a sitting Maitreya shows an incense- burner in the field between the legs of the chair (fig. 4). 24 This burner has a long handle and a decoration of the underside rem¬
iniscent of the petals of a flower.
A new burner (fig. 5) of ex¬
ceptional workmanship recently came to light in a private collec¬
tion, together with a small près- Fig. 4
Falk 2002, p. 113.
Marshall 1951,II, pp. 543, 595f.
Verardi 1994, p. 68.
Fig. 6a Fig. 6b
entation of a royal figure shown holding such a burner in his right hand (fig.
6a,b), suggesting that the act of fumigation was not the exclusive work of the monks. According to the family tradition, the piece was found somewhere near Jalalabad in Nangahar, East Afghanistan. 25
The burner is about 50 cm long, made from brass and consists of a bowl worked into 18 petals on the underside, which are partially covered by a
smaller ring of 9 petals (fig. 7). From the inside of the bowl a handle emerges which is led outside in an elegant bend. The heavy object can thus be held by putting the bend under the fore-arm.
A stand is fixed to the bowl with a rivet. Whereas the bowl is cast, the stand was turned, and received five decorative lines in its inner side. Be¬
tween the lowest two lines a donation record has been hammered in in tiny letters in Kharosthï script. The letters are 7 to 8 mm high; the inside is partly corroded, partly cleaned to a glossy polish. Because of extreme poor vis¬
ibility it was not possible to read the full text on the spot. Instead, a series
25 The kneeling figure sports a mustache. He holds the burner in his right hand, with his left hand on the handle of his sword. He wears a "Scythian" coat with belt and a cap with large round ornaments on three sides, and a long ribbon at the back. The figure is only about 6 cm high, the artist, however, has spared no pains on the detailing. It is rea¬
sonable to assume that it is a portrait of a real donor, meant to remain in a sacred area, perpetuating the act of reverence indefinitely.
of color photographs had to be enlarged until the full text disclosed itself. Black and white reproductions would not admit a full reading of the letters. Therefore, only one example is given here (fig. 8) to provide an impres¬
sion of the writing style. Let¬
ter sequences were copied by electronic means and reas¬
sembled for the drawing of
the text (fig. 9). The letters Fig. 7
make a full round and read without spaces:
sam 20 4 khamtikasamtigathubammi bautaanami acaryana dharmagutakana parigrahami
"(Given) in the year 24, in the Ksäntika-säntika-Stüpa at Bahutapana(P), into the care of the teachers of the Dharmaguptakas."
The reading can be regarded as fairly secure, despite the smallness of the let¬
ters and the imperfect preservation of this part of the object.
Regarding the palaeography, this piece is a far cry from the one dealt with above. The date of "year 24" cannot be an Azes date, it should, however, be a Kusäna date. Since there is no letter indicative of the last phase of Kharosthï,
Fig. 8
• ~~>'
-Vv r^.
^
**.
Fig. 9
I opt for the first Kusäna century, resulting in a date 127 + 24 = ad 151. This would be the time between Kaniska I and Huviska, a prosperous time with lots of donations and foundations of stüpas in this area, well-dated through coins, some even of Roman origin.
The text contains some names, unattested so far. The place is called bautaana in Gandhäran Prakrit, admitting several Sanskrit restorations.
Most likely, bau- stands for bahu. Dropping of intervocalic h is well-known, e.g. in patinivaito from pratinirvdhita^ or in siasena from simhasena. 27 Oc¬
casionally, such a dropped h is replaced by a ya-sruti, as in sadaviyari from sadhavihdrin 28 or danamuye on a small Buddha figure. 29 The remaining taana has been restored to Skt. tápana, simply because intervocalic pa>va is the most frequent object of elision. The toponym of bahutapana would have a double meaning, both "much heat", indicative of a sunny place, and also
"much penance", indicative of monks taking their lot seriously.
The stüpa at this monastery is called khamtikasamtiga, Skt. ksdntika- sdntika, referring to another virtue, namely "indulgence" and "peace", both ideas very much suitable for such an edifice. Verardi 30 pointed to the sdntika rite in medieval Buddhism, which is used to ward off all sorts of dis¬
eases and distress. Although I do not share his idea of homa in Gandhäran iconography, the monastery's name could well refer to pacificatory rites involving fumigation.
26 Salomon 1996, p. 430.
27G. Fussman in Sadakata 1996, p. 310 fn. 29.
28 Konow 1929,p. 107.
29 Fussman 1980, p. 57.
30 Verardi 1994, p. 34.
The stüpa was under the care of the Dharmaguptakas, the most promi¬
nent group in the area, known from a multitude of inscriptions.
The burner never made it to the gandhakutï, since it was meant from the start to be given into a newly built or enlarged stüpa in the year Kusäna 24, just like the "perfume box", gandhakaranda, which likewise was made to be deposited inside the enlargement section of the so-called Kaniska-stüpa at Peshawar. However, we can be sure that similar items were in regular use, most likely in the vicinity of statues or other symbols of the Buddha himself.
Stüpas in Gandhära centre around a reliquary, containing sacred ashes.
The reliquary is usually filled with all sorts of precious items of small di¬
mensions, be they ornaments or coins. Tools for worship are usually absent.
The only exceptions I am aware of are the gandhakaranda at Peshawar and our new burner coming from Jalalabad. Both items are used for producing pleasant smells, and it seems that this smell had more meaning to Buddhist laymen than previously anticipated.
3. An oversize lamp
During the earth-work conducted for a garage in Dargai, at the foot of the pass road from Peshawar to Malakhand in Swat, two parts of an oversized lamp were found, several meters apart from each other (fig. 10). The lamp was broken in two in antiquity, however, it can be reassembled with no parts missing. The lamp is 47cm long, 46cm wide and 13 cm high (fig. 11). At its back is found a handle, enlarging the lamp another 5 cm.
On one side there is an inscription in clear-cut Kharosthï letters, saying (fig. 12):
Fig. 12
aya divhaliya audiyami dhamaraina malaspana
Although the letters are clearly cut, the meaning is clear only in a few places.
The text starts by naming the object as "this lamp pot", aya divhaliya. The latter term must be compared to divathaliya, Skt. *dïpasthâlikâ, as found on an average sized lamp from Swat. 31 Spelled divathalika, the same term is again found on another small lamp from the Peshawar valley, to be pub¬
lished by M. Nazim Khan. The development from divathaliya to divhaliya presupposes the loss of a syllable in the middle. The seemingly strange vha, attesting a development^ —> v —> vh, can be compared to the terms karavaka and karavhaa found at Manikiala, 32 both representing Skt. käräpaka, "com¬
missioner". In the Taxila silver scroll inscription vha likewise replaces^ in imtravhria, Skt. 'Hndrapriya. 33
The next term audiyami cannot be anything else but the locative of audiya, which might stand for Skt. *akütika, "without top", or "without
31 Falk 2000.
32 Konow 1929,pp. 149 and 151.
33 Konow 1929, p. 77, differently: p. 74.
fault", to be compared to ekauda, a name of a stüpa, Skt. ekaküta, "single- peaked", as found in the Senavarma inscription, sentences 1 c, 1 d, 2 b, 3 a and 12e. 34 Other explanations, however, should not be excluded.
It is difficult to say where the next word ends. The letters of dhamaraina- mala come in close succession. The last two letters spa and na, however, are separated by small spaces. The term dhamaraia denotes a well-known compound near Taxila in the Silver Scroll Inscription 35 and on a lamp found in the same area. 36 It again occurs in the locative in the so-called Asoraya inscription, 37 probably coming from Taxila. It is difficult to imagine that our huge lamp was brought from Taxila, although transferals as such are not un¬
known, as a sieve from Taxila, found near Begram, proves. 38 The same sieve inscription shows that monks are named after their place of origin: the so- called seria-monks own a monastery; they are Kasyapïyas in their monastic lineage, and the term seria seems to refer to sira, the linguistic base of mod¬
ern Sir-kap and Sir-sukh, the two new foundations of Taxila to the west of the ancient site called "Bhir mound". If we look for a similar designation in dhamaraia here, we can think of just one other dharmamjika site near Dar- gai. We can as well think of monks hailing from the dharmamjika site near Taxila, establishing a branch near Dargai, being called Skt. '"dharmamjika,
"belonging to the (group of) Dharmaräjika (monks from Taxila)". This would help us to understand why dhamaraia here is not a locative sg., but, reading dhamaraiana, a genitive plural.
The biggest problem follows with the last four letters, malaspana. They show some small spaces at the end. The spa is so clearly rounded that it seems impossible to take it for a sloppily written ka. From the context we would expect a term like äcäryänäm, sramanänäm or bhadantänäm,
supplying the subject to the attributive dhamaraina. We would guess that malaspa must mean something similar to äcärya, sramana or bhadanta, but its lexical background remains obscure. However, there seems to exist a cog¬
nate form in the so-called Tiravharna inscription, still in the Kabul Museum, which says that in the year 83, in month Ulo, 39 a lotus pond was installed
34 von Hinüber 2003.
35 Konow 1929, p. 77.
36 Konow 1929, p. 90.
37 Mukherjee 1990.
38 Falk 2000-2001.
39 After the year numbers, the month starts with u and a vertical line of the next letter.
To the left of this vertical line is space enough for mase, then follows the number 1. There is no other month known at present starting with u followed by a character which does not require graphemes to the right of the vertical. For month ulo/(u)loios see Falk 2003, p. 72f.
by Stapa[l-2 letters missing], son of Dhoburuna, 40 and this donor calls himself malasuena in the instrumental, leading to a stem malasua. This was regarded by all authors 41 to be the personal name, which, however, should rather be looked for in stapalll. On a trial basis we can equate malasua with malaspa. We know that donors call themselves saman a many times, but never dcdrya or bhadanta, terms which are used exclusively by donors for addressing the donees. The variation sua and spa may be compared to the well-attested change sya to sa, e.g. in anumotisati from Skt. anumodisyanti,
bhavisati from bhavisyati and manuse from manusya in the Senavarma in¬
scription, sentences 12d, 13 b and 13 c, 42 or to the change from sva to spa in spasa from Skt. svasr, "sister", in the Indravarman inscription. These cases show that there are changes from sa to sa and from sa to sa under certain conditions. These cases allow us to consider a relationship, however, they do not yet provide an explanation of the linguistic basis behind malasua and malaspa. Either we have to deal with a term from a non-Sanskritic language, or, if Sanskritic, the first part is mala, "dirt", and then the second should be a root noun means "leaving behind" or similar. Hopefully, time will tell.
Taking all parts together and being aware of the imponderables we can translate:
"This lamp pot (is a donation) at Akütika for the monks (?) hailing from Dharmaräjika."
Palaeographic note
The letters are very carefully incised in a style common to the Peshawar valley and Swat. There is just one letter which calls for attention, i.e. the vha in divha, i.e. Skt. dlpa, "lamp". Usually, vha is written by attaching an upward hook to the upper right side of a va [Is]. Here, however, the "leg"
of the letter consists of the prolongation of the vertical part of this same hook ['V]. The old "leg" of the va is not executed at all. This new shape has a close parallel in the Nowshera Pedestal inscription 43 in the term dhivhakara, Skt. dïpamkara, where the vha occurs in the same word as in our lamp. The rubbing accompanying Konow's edition does not show in all clarity that the vertical line of the hook extends almost to the bottom line [1-1]. The
"change of leg" for vha is noticeable at Nowshera and clearly shown on the
40 Read as dhoburena before. The eye-copy produced by Davary (1981, Abb. 2) can only be read as dhoburuna-putra-stapa/ //.
41 Konow 1938, Humbach 1968a and b, Fussman 1970.
42 von Hinüber 2003.
43 Konow 1929, p. 134.
Dargai lamp. Both places, being only 55 km apart from each other, may have preserved a local scribal tradition. The extent to which the two artefacts are contemporaneous cannot be decided at the moment.
Ergonomie note
Similarly oversized lamps are very rare. There is one from Sahri Bahlol on display in the Peshawar Museum, accession no. 1341.Another one seems to come from Zalamköt in the Malakand Agency, published by Farooq Swati et al., 44 without indicating its exact size. These three examples point to the area in the northern part of the Peshawar valley as the place where this over¬
size type was invented.
The reason for such a huge lamp may be sought in two directions. One is the tendency in Gandhära to enlarge all sorts of utensils, particularly those supposedly used by the Buddha himself. A "lamp of the Buddha" would not be surprising in the light of what the Chinese pilgrims reported about his giant walking stick or foot-prints. Several giant bowls have been found, some of the same size depicted as venerated by devotees on Gandhäran pan¬
els, some shown filled with flowers, as is the case with the begging bowl of the Buddha in Butkara I, Swat. 45 If there was a giant bowl of the Buddha, there might as well have been a giant lamp of the Buddha. However, other explanations are equally possible.
A. von Rospatt drew my attention to giant oil-lamps in Nepal, guar¬
anteeing light for a very long time. The donation of one giant lamp is documented by a statue now in the Karachi Museum.46 It shows a kneeling devotee called Dharmadeva by an inscription, offering the huge lamp resting on his legs.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to all owners for granting access and giving permission to pub¬
lish their items, to Anke Sänger (Berlin) and Maryse Blet-Lemarquand (CNRS, IRAMAT, Centre Ernest-Babelon, Orléans) for analysing the metal of the bronze plate and to David Brown for correcting the English.
Farooq Swati et al. 2002,p. 232 and pi. 33.
Falk 2005.
Kurita 2004, II, p. 205, no. 594.
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