Nagarjunakonda inscriptions of Chamtisiri

These are the most important of the Prakrit inscriptions found at Nagarjunakonda in the Krishna valley.¹²³⁴ They were cut on the ayaka pillars of the Great Stupa, and on the floor of a small shrine beside it.¹²³⁴ The ayaka pillars were the rows of five limestone columns that stood on platforms facing the four entrances of the monument.¹²³⁴

Most of the inscriptions record the gift of a pillar by Chamtisiri, a princess of the Ikshvaku dynasty.¹²³⁴ This dynasty ruled from the city of Vijayapuri in the 3rd and early 4th centuries CE.¹²³⁴ Fragments of a third group, on the pillars of a stone hall beside the stupa (relic mound), also name her.⁵

Discovery

A. R. Sarasvati of the Madras epigraphy office noticed three inscribed pillars at the site in March 1926.⁶ M. Hamid Kuraishi made trial excavations, reported early in 1927, which brought to light eighteen more inscriptions.⁶ A. H. Longhurst’s excavations from 1927–28 added further finds.⁶

Hirananda Sastri, the Government Epigraphist, had impressions (estampages) made.⁶ He sent them to J. Ph. Vogel of Leiden, who edited all the records together in Epigraphia Indica XX.⁶ Of the inscriptions found by Kuraishi, fifteen were on the pillars of the Great Stupa.⁷

Physical description

Seventeen ayaka pillars of the Great Stupa were recovered.² All were inscribed, and thirteen of them were complete or nearly complete.² Each pillar’s original position, on the north, south, east or west side, could be identified.²

The inscriptions run to between five and thirteen lines on the lower part of each shaft.⁸⁹ The lines are roughly 16 to 25 inches long.⁸⁹ A further inscription, labelled E by Vogel, is cut on the stone floor of the apsidal shrine (a hall with one rounded end) immediately east of the stupa.⁹ It is in two very long lines, 14 feet 5 inches long.⁹

Close to the east side of that shrine, Longhurst uncovered the remains of a large stone-paved hall.⁵ Its stone pillars, all broken, had sockets at the top for the timber beams of the roof.⁵ Their shafts were inscribed below carvings of two recumbent (lying) animals, probably lions.⁵

Twenty inscribed fragments were recovered, two of which fit together.⁵ None of the texts survives complete.⁵ Vogel published them in Epigraphia Indica XXI as M 1–19.⁵

Language and script

The language is Prakrit, a vernacular form descended from Sanskrit, and the script is Brahmi, the ancient Indian alphabet.¹⁰¹¹ Vogel found the engraving technically excellent but the texts carelessly drafted.¹⁰¹¹ Syllables and whole words are omitted, vowel lengths are often unmarked, and even the king’s name is usually misspelt.¹⁰¹¹ No two of the nine copies of Chamtisiri’s text agree exactly.¹⁰¹¹ The pillars use numerical symbols for the dates.¹¹

Content

The standard text opens with a long invocation of the Buddha.¹² It then names the donor, the mahatalavari (a noble title) Chamtisiri, and describes her as:¹²

• uterine sister (sister by the same mother) of the Maharaja Vasithiputa Siri-Chamtamula of the Ikhaku (Ikshvaku) family, who is praised as a giver of crores of gold, hundreds of thousands of cows and ploughs of land¹²
• paternal aunt of King Madhariputa Siri-Virapurisadata (Virapurushadatta)¹²
• wife of the general (mahasenapati) and mahatalavara Vasithiputa Kamdasiri of the Pukiya family¹²
• mother of Khamdasagaramnaka¹²

She is said to have set up the pillar “for the attainment of welfare and happiness in both the worlds”.¹² She is also said to have set it up for her own Nirvana and for the welfare of the whole world.¹² The date follows: the 6th year of King Virapurisadata, the 6th fortnight of the rainy season, the 10th day.¹² Some copies praise Chamtamula as the performer of the Vedic sacrifices Agnihotra, Agnishtoma, Vajapeya and Ashvamedha (the Vedic horse sacrifice performed by kings).³

One copy (C 1) adds that “this pious foundation of the Mahachetiya” was completed, and the pillars set up, by the monk Ananda.¹² Ananda knew two collections of the Buddha’s discourses by heart.¹² The work was done for the benefit of the teachers of the Aparamahavinaseliya school.¹²

The floor inscription E records that Chamtisiri built a chaitya-hall, a stone hall with a cloister, at the foot of the Mahachaitya.¹³¹⁴ She built it for the same school, for the long life and victory of her son-in-law King Virapurushadatta, in his 18th year.¹³¹⁴ Vogel inferred that between the 6th and 18th years the king had married Chamtisiri’s daughter, his cousin.³

The hall inscriptions differ in wording from one another.⁵¹⁵ But Vogel found in them phrases also used on the stupa pillars and in inscription E.⁵¹⁵ One fragment (M 1) repeats Chamtisiri’s descent and marriage much as on the stupa pillars.⁵¹⁵ He concluded that all of them recorded the same act: Chamtisiri’s foundation of the pillared hall (mandapa) for the masters of the Aparamahavinaseliya school.⁵¹⁵

Two joined fragments (M 4) give the date as the 15th year of Virapurushadatta, the 8th fortnight of the rainy season, and the day is lost.⁵¹⁵ Vogel identified this hall with the stone hall at the foot of the Mahachaitya that inscription E records three years later.⁵¹⁵ No trace was found of the cloister named with it.⁵¹⁵

Date

The records give regnal years only. Vogel accepted Bühler’s palaeographic dating (dating from the letters) of Virapurushadatta to the 3rd century CE.¹⁶ Hirananda Sastri placed the dynasty in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.⁷ D. C. Sircar in 1959 put Virapurushadatta about the middle of the 3rd century.¹⁷

Sircar later dated another inscription of Virapurushadatta’s reign, the memorial pillar of Chamtamula, to 273–74.⁴ That inscription was written in the cyclic year Vijaya.⁴ In one of his reconstructions Virapurushadatta reigned about 255–75.⁴ In the other, he and his two successors reigned about 265–335.⁴

Significance

The inscriptions show that the Ikshvaku king was praised for Vedic sacrifices.³¹⁸ But the Buddhist foundations of his capital were paid for by the women of the royal house.³¹⁸ Hirananda Sastri remarked that no gift by a male member of the family had been found.³¹⁸

They also name Buddhist schools, titles of the nobility such as mahatalavara, and marriage links with Vanavasi and probably Ujjain.¹⁶³ Their wording was later read as evidence that the stupa enshrined a bodily relic of the Buddha.¹²¹⁹ This reading was disputed between Vogel and Hirananda Sastri.¹²¹⁹

Edition

• J. Ph. Vogel, “Prakrit Inscriptions from a Buddhist Site at Nagarjunikonda”, Epigraphia Indica XX (1929–30, published 1933), pp. 1 ff., with plates; the text of C 3 with variant readings of the other copies is on p. 16, its translation on p. 17.¹²
• J. Ph. Vogel, “Additional Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda”, Epigraphia Indica XXI (1931–32), pp. 64–65: the hall inscriptions M 1–19, transcribed but not translated because they are so incomplete.¹⁵

Footnotes

1. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 2 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 3 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

3. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

4. D. C. Sircar, “More Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda”, Epigraphia Indica XXXV (1963–64), p. 6 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

5. J. Ph. Vogel, “Additional Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda”, Epigraphia Indica XXI (1931–32), p. 64 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

6. J. Ph. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from a Buddhist Site at Nagarjunikonda, Epigraphia Indica XX (1933), p. 1 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. A. H. Longhurst, “Excavations at Nagarjunikonda”, Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India 1927–28 (1931), p. 115 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

8. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 13 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

9. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 14 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 11 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

11. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 12 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

12. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), pp. 16–17 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

13. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 21 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

14. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 22 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

15. Vogel, “Additional Prakrit Inscriptions” (1931–32), p. 65 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

16. Vogel, Prakrit Inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda (1933), p. 6 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

17. D. C. Sircar, “Two Inscriptions from Guntur District”, Epigraphia Indica XXXII (1959), p. 83 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

18. Longhurst, “Excavations at Nagarjunikonda”, ASI Annual Report 1927–28 (1931), pp. 118–119 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

19. A. H. Longhurst, The Buddhist Antiquities of Nagarjunakonda (1938), p. 18 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²