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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In the seventh pillar-edict of Aśōka, inscribed on the so-called Delhi-Siwālik column, there is a passage which runs as follows: see IA, 13. 310, text lines 2, 3, and facsimile; and EI, 2. 270, text:—
Dēvānaṁpiyē Piyadasi lājā hēvaṁ āhā magēsu pi mē nigōhāni lōpāpitāni chhāy-ōpagāni hōsaṁti pasu-munisānaṁ aṁbāvaḍikyā lōpāpitā aḍhakōsikyāni pi mē udupānāni khānāpāpitāni niṁisiḍhiyā cha kālāpitā āpānāni mē bahukāni tata-tata kālāpitāni paṭībhōgāyē pasu-munisānaṁ.
page 401 note 1 This appellation would appear to be somewhat of a misnomer, as the column seems to have come from a village some fifty miles away from the Siwālik Hills (see page 407 below, and note). In any case, on the analogy of the name “ Delhi-Meerut” for the other inscribed column of Aśōka now standing at Delhi, this one would more appropriately be called the “ Delhi-Topra” column.
page 401 note 2 Regarding this word, which would seem to a Sanskṛitist to be erroneous in the second syllable, see page 415 below.
page 401 note 3 The partial resemblance here to chi or chī was probably not intended by either the writer or the engraver.
page 403 note 1 The cases of shortening given by Müller in his Pāli Grammar, p. 17, may or may not be taken as analogous.
page 404 note 1 Prinsep, also, figured this syllable with the Anusvāra (JASB, 6, 1837. 600), though he transcribed it without it (see note on page 405 below).
page 404 note 2 The nearest approaches to an analogy seem to be the forms mahiṁsa, = mahisha, ‘ a buffalo,’ and Mahiṁsakamaṇḍala, the name of a country, given by Müller in his Pāli Grammar, p. 22. The first of these words waa cited by Professor Bühler, in support of his acceptance of the reading niṁ.
page 405 note 1 He transcribed nisi … … picha, and apparently had in view the word niśītha, ‘night.’
page 406 note 1 In the Girnār and Mansehra versions, this passage is altogether illegible. At Dhauli and Jaugada, the 13th edict was not published.
page 406 note 2 In the versions at Śiddāpura and Jaṭiṅga-Rāmēśvara, this word is not extant. Regarding another term in this record which is supposed to include a word meaning ‘ a half,’ see note 2 on page 413 below.
page 406 note 3 For the shortening of the penultimate vowel, particularly common in words ending in īya, see Mülier's Pāli Grammar, p. 17.
page 407 note 1 Khizrābād, which also is in the Ambālā District, may be found in the Indian Atlas sheet 48 (1861) in lat. 30° 18′, long. 77° 33′, about two and a half miles from the right bank of the Jamnā.
The same map shews a village ‘ Cha Topra,’ = Chhōṭā Topra, twenty-one miles towards S.W. by W. from Khizrābād. But the real place appears (see ASI, 14. 78) to be Baṛā Tōpra, “the larger or original Topra,”—not shewn in the map,—two miles further to the south-west.
The translation of the original account by Shams-i-Sirāj of the transfer of this column has been reproduced in V. Smith's Aśoka, p. 97 f.
page 408 note 1 The numbering of the lines in the text here (loc. cit. 464 f.) does not agree with the numbering of them in the plate.
page 409 note 1 M. Senart has expressed the opinion (S.IP, 1. introd. 35 ff.; IA, 21. 88, 176) that, in the three characters in which Professor Bühler recognized the three sibilants ś, sh, and s, we have only variants, which are absolute equivalents, of the dental sibilant s. I do not take the position of offering an opinion on this point. But I follow Professor Bühler's transcription, if only as a very convenient means of marking the use of the three signs.
page 411 note 1 Julien, Mémoires, 1. 59; Beal, Si-yu-ki, 1. 70; Watters, On Yuan Chwang, 1. 141.
page 411 note 2 I quote, as closely as possible, the translation given by Cowell and Thomas p. 199); differing chiefly in the following details. The word ‘league’ is so habitually associated with the measure of three geographical miles, that it is not admissible as a suitable rendering of the Sanskṛit krōsa. It seems to me that prayāṇa-krōśa means the kōs of a march in general, a standard day's march; not of ‘the [particular] day's march.’
page 413 note 1 With the probable form asta of the Shāhbāzgarhī versíon (ibid. 462, line 1), we are not here concerned. In the Girnār and Mansehra versions, the word is not extant. The form aṭha may or may not stand for aṭṭha.
page 413 note 2 I have purposely abstained from handling in this article the word aḍhatiya, aḍhātiya, which we have in the Sahasrām, etc., record. It is supposed to represent ardhatṛitīya, ‘ two and a half.’ But I hold that it represents ashṭatriṁśat, ashṭātriṁśat, ‘thirty-eight.’ That, however, is a point that remains to be established.
page 413 note 3 But it is not impossible that there is something analogous to the present case in the word aḍḍhakāsika, v.l. okāsiya, in the Vinayapiṭaka, ed. Oldenberg, 1. 281, if we may have aḍḍha = aṭṭha, as well as aḍha = aṭha.
We are there told that the king of Kāsī sent to the royal physician Jīvaka-Kōmārabhachcha a kambala, or woollen blanket, which is described as:— aḍḍhakāsikaṁ kambalaṁ … … upaḍḍhakāsinaṁ khamamānaṁ; and that Buddha accepted it from Jīvaka. The text has been conjecturally translated as meaning “ a woollen garment made half of Benares cloth … … ” (SBE, 17. 195). A footnote to the translation, however, tells us that Buddhaghōsha has explained that kāsi means ‘ one thousand;’ that kāsiya means ‘ a thing that is worth one thousand;’ and that the kambala in question was called aḍḍhakāsiya because it was ‘ worth five hundred’ (lit., worth half-a-thousand).
We may infer that the woollen blanket, which thus ultimately found its way into Buddha's hands, was something special and costly of its kind. And, if kāsika, kāsiya, may mean ‘ worth one thousand,’ there really seems no reason why aḍḍhakāsika, okāsiya, may not (in spite of Buddhaghōsha) mean ‘ worth eight thousand.’ In view of the fees received by Jīvaka on various occasions,— 16,000 (kahāpaṇas) for curing a merchant's wife (trans, p. 179); 100,000 (kahāpaṇas) for curing a merchant (p. 184); and again 16,000 (kahāpaṇas) for curing a merchant's son (p. 186),— even 8,000 kahāpaṇas (aḍḍhakāsika, okāsiya: or ‘ nearly 8,000,’ upaḍḍhakāsinaṁ, etc.; compare, e.g., upadaśa, ‘nearly ten, almost ten’) would not seem so very much to pay for a specíal woollen blanket.
page 414 note 1 I quote these forms from Molesworth and Candy's Dictionary, 2nd edition (1857), and Stevenson's Grammar, 4th edition (1868), p. 81.
page 414 note 2 Of these two forms, the first only is familiar to me.
page 414 note 3 Here, again, only the first form is familiar to me. Regarding the second, the Dictionary indicates ‘aḍusashṭ, properly aḍasashṭ.’
page 414 note 4 Stevenson gave only aṭhṭhēchāḷīs; and that form alone is familiar to me.
page 414 note 5 I quote these forms from Taylor's Grammar (1893), p. 31.
page 414 note 6 I am indebted to Dr. Grierson for these forms.
page 414 note 7 Here, the Dictionary intimates that the forms with l are better than those with d; but the use of the forms with d, and not of the others, is thoroughly familiar to me.
page 414 note 8 Alongside of satsaṭh, satasaṭh, according to Beames' Comparative Grammar, 1. 289.
page 415 note 1 Childers' Dictionary gives only the form nigrōdha.
page 416 note 1 In the Girnār, Shāhbazgarhī, and Mansehra texts, use was made of different forms of the Sanskṛit kūpa, ‘a well.’