Initial translation

Hail! From Puṇḍravardhana, the officials and the council of the capital greet the landholders, beginning with the Brahmins, in the hamlets Śiṣīpuñja and Madhyamasr̥gālikā, falling under prāveśya The term X-prāveśya-Y in cadastral contexts indicates that Y is part of the larger unit X. See the glossary in Schmiedchen forthcoming. the village Ārya, and in Grāmakūṭagohālī, falling under Abjataṭāpagaccha, This rather surprising toponym seems to mean ‘lotus abja – shore taṭa – leave apagaccha’. all three in the Ṣaṇḍika division, Cf. the Madhyamaṣaṇḍika vīthī of the Raktamālā grant #1 and Raktamālā grant #2. and they inform:

Nāgavasu petitions us: The sale, in your council, of waste land that is without revenue charges and yields no tax, to be enjoyed in perpetuity in accordance with the law on permanent endowments, is customary anuvr̥tta with a kulyavāpa for the price of two dīnāras. Thus tad, for me too, The syntactic position of the genitive mama is not transparent. It is found in a comparable context also in the Tāvīra plate, line 8. Is it the indirect object with dātum? This is implied by Sircar’s explanation (2887) mama=mahyam on the Dhanaidaha plate, line 8 (inspection of the published facsimile shows that we must read mamāpy anenaiva instead of the reading mamādyānenaiva found in all publications so far), but this text it too fragmentary to be helpful. Anyhow, that solution does not seem to work here and in the Tāvīra plate. Could it be construed with pravarttana? But one rather expects that the venerable Arhants should be the agents of the pravarttana. Perhaps we have contamination from such contexts as Damodarpur #1, line 6–9 (emended) brāhmaṇa-karppaṭikena vijñāpitam arhatha mamāgnihotropayogāya apradāprahata-khila-kṣetraṁ tri-dīnārikya-kulyāvāpena śaśvad-ācandrārkka-tāraka-bhogyākṣaya-nīvī-dharmeṇa dātum. with this very procedure, for the regular performance of offerings of perfume, incense, flowers, lamps, grain oblation bali, rice oblation caru, food oblation nivedya, etc., to the venerable Arhants at the three monasteries superintended by the ascetic kṣamaṇa masters Jinadāsa and Karṇaka — thus: the two monasteries at Śiṣīpuñja and Madhyamasr̥gālikā as well as the monastery founded by the Brahmin … in Grāmakūṭagohālī —; and for the sake of food for those  who use their cupped hands as bowl pāṇipātrika  for morsels which were intended to be eaten by others i.e., leftovers, and others, among the Nigranthaputras who have defeated past and future karman resident there, as well as repairs, etc., of what is broken into pieces, be so kind as take from me four dīnāras and to give two kulyavāpas of waste land yielding no tax — thus: a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Śiṣīpuñja, a kulyavāpa of waste land at Madhyamasr̥gālikā, a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Grāmakūṭagohālī.

Wherefore, after confirmation through an investigation by the first prathama record-keeper Śarva and the primary ādya record-keepers Prīti, Viṣṇudhara, Jayadatta, Rāmadatta, Sudarśanaśrīdāsa and Bhavadāsa, and after having taken in cash four dīnāras from the side of Nāgavasu, the two kulyavāpas must be given. I tentatively presume that this second quotation terminated by iti still forms part of the petition that began in line 3.

And the two kulyavāpas of waste land without revenue charges and yielding no tax — thus: a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Śiṣīpuñja, a kulyavāpa of waste land at Madhyamasr̥gālikā, a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Grāmakūṭagohālī — for the regular performance of offerings of perfume, incense, flowers, lamps, grain oblation, rice oblation, food oblation, etc., to the venerable Arhants at the three monasteries at Śiṣīpuñja, Śrīgohālī Note that this toponym, also found in the fragment from Baigram and the Baigram plate, here takes the place of Madhyamasr̥gālikā. and Grāmakūṭagohālī, superintended by the ascetic masters Jinadāsa and Karṇaka, and for the sake of food for those who use their cupped hands as bowl  for morsels which were intended to be eaten by others, and others, among the Nigranthaputras who have defeated past and future karman resident there, as well as repairs, etc., of what is broken into pieces, are to be given by you to the three monasteries, after you have separated them off with sixfold reeds ṣaṭkanala in a place that does not conflict with your own cultivation, and are to be protected in perpetuity in accordance with the law on permanent endowments.

It has been said by the venerable Vyāsa:

The one who would steal land given by himself or another becomes a worm in excrement and is cooked with his ancestors. This verse corresponds to the verse numbered 132 among the Stanzas on Bhūmidāna listed by Sircar see II170-200.

The giver of land revels sixty thousand years in heaven; the one who challenges a donation as well as the one who approves of the challenge will reside as many years in hell. This verse corresponds to the verse numbered 123 among the Stanzas on Bhūmidāna listed by Sircar see II170-200.

Year 198, Śrāvaṇa, day .

Translation modified with minor suggestions of Amandine Wattelier-Bricout

Hail! From Puṇḍravardhana, the officials and the city council adhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇa The expression adhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇa can be found in Damodarpur plate #1 line 4, Damodarpur plate #2 line 4, Damodarpur #4, lines 3-4, Damodarpur #5 in the seal and line 4, and finally in Paharpur Charter of the Time of Budhagupta line 1. The different translations suggested for this expression are reported below :

Damodarpur plate #1 line 4: adhiṣṭhāṇādhikaraṇañ ca nagaraśreṣṭhidhṛtipāla translated by "the Board of the town presiding over the Nagara-śreṣṭhin Dhṛtipāla" Damodarpur plate #2 line 4 : adhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇañ ca nagaraśreṣṭhidhṛtipāla translated by the Board of the Town, presiding over the Nagara-śreshṭhin Dhṛtipāla Damodarpur #4, lines 3-4 : adhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇaṃ nagaraśreṣṭhiribhupāla translated by the court of the district town as the chief of the Nagara-śreṣṭhī Ribhupāla Damodarpur #5 seal : koṭivarṣādhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇasya translated by Of the office of the adhiṣṭhāna capital of Koṭivarsha Damodarpur #5 line 4 : adhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇam āryyyanagaraśreṣṭhiribhupāla translated by "the affairs of the town adhiṣṭhāna in the company of the Nagara-śrēshṭhin, Āryya Ribhupala"

For this expression, suggests Municipal Board with the following references XV p.143, XVII, p.193, XX, p.61. In my opinion, the translation allows to find an equivalent or to give a base to understand what is behind this expression, but it refers to a system coming from the Roman antiquity. For this reason, I think this translation does not fit. In French, one could translate by conseil communal to remove the reference of Roman antiquity, but the equivalent words in English seem to be town, city, village or local. Consequently I consider the translation "the city council" fits better than the earlier translation council of the capital suggested in . greet the landholders, beginning with the Brahmins, in the hamlets Śiṣīpuñja and Madhyamasr̥gālikā, falling under prāveśya The term X-prāveśya-Y in cadastral contexts indicates that Y is part of the larger unit X. See the glossary in Schmiedchen forthcoming. the village Ārya, and in Grāmakūṭagohālī, falling under Abjataṭāpagaccha, This rather surprising toponym seems to mean ‘lotus abja – shore taṭa – leave apagaccha’. all three in the Ṣaṇḍika division, Cf. the Madhyamaṣaṇḍika vīthī of the Raktamālā grant #1 and Raktamālā grant #2. and they inform:

Nāgavasu petitions us: The sale, in your council, of waste land that is without revenue charges and yields no tax, to be enjoyed in perpetuity in accordance with the law on permanent endowments, is customary anuvr̥tta with a kulyavāpa for the price of two dīnāras.

Thus tad, be so kind to use, for me too, this very procedure Here the instrumental anenaiva krameṇa is rendered by the expression "use this very procedure". By this way, the genitive mamāpy could be analysed as a genitive of purpose in a broader meaning. Nāgavasu asks the customary procedure be applied to him as well. This kind of genitive is usually used with the pronouns see 222.D.b307. concerning the three monasteries superintended by a couple of ascetics kṣamaṇa masters, Jinadāsa and Karṇaka, - the two monasteries at Śiṣīpuñja and Madhyamasr̥gālikā The lacuna consisting of nine akṣaras line 9 may be reconstructed in two different ways by taking the context into account. The first possibility, suggested in 38, is based on the beginining of the text and fills in the lacuna with maddhyamasr̥gālikāyā, place name founded in compound with Śiṣīpuñja in line 2. The second possibility is based on the continuation of the text. As the three monasteries are mentioned by the compound śiṣīpuñja-śrīgohālī-grāmakūṭagohālyāñ ca vihāratrayyāṁ line 16 and as one can read the repetition of the word vihāra in a compound ṇḍanakāritaka-vihāravihāra-trayasyayāṁ, the part of the lacuna may also be filled in with °vihāraśrīgohālī°. In this case, the translation would be the two monasteries, the one located in and the other located in Śrīgohālī in which the repetion of the word vihāra is rendered by the one ... and the other. and the third one called...?, Maybe the four akṣaras illegible before vihāra-trayasya line 7 mentioned the name of the monastery. a monasterie which is made well-ornated su-maṇḍana I suggest fill in the lacuna of two akṣaras line 7 by the syllable suma in order to reconstruct a compound su-maṇḍana-kāritaka. The avakhaṇḍana word could be suggested to fill in the lacuna and could be translated by a monastery which has been made destroyed by a brāhmaṇa. Whereas the destruction of a monastery by a brāhmaṇa seems less likely, it could be explained the need to repair what is broken or cracked in line 10. by a brāhmaṇa and which is located in Grāmakūṭagohālī - and be so kind to give dātum line 13 to the venerable Arhants for the sake of the regular performance of offerings of perfume, incense, flowers, lamps, grain oblation bali, rice oblation caru, food oblation nivedya, etc., and to those resident there who are Nigranthaputras who have defeated past and future karman for the use of such things as providing their food by beginning by those who use their cupped hands as bowl  for morsels which were intended to be eaten by others or carrying out the repairs of breaches khaṇḍa and cracks phuṭṭa two kulyavāpas of waste land yielding no tax divided as follows evam line 12, a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Śiṣīpuñja, a kulyavāpa of waste land at Madhyamasr̥gālikā, a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Grāmakūṭagohālī, after taking from me four dīnāras.

Wherefore, after confirmation through an investigation by the first prathama record-keeper Śarva and the primary ādya record-keepers Prīti, Viṣṇudhara, Jayadatta, Rāmadatta, Sudarśanaśrīdāsa and Bhavadāsa, and after having taken in cash four dīnāras from the side of Nāgavasu, the two kulyavāpas must be given. I tentatively presume that this second quotation terminated by iti still forms part of the petition that began in line 3.

And they inform that bodhayanti l.3 the two kulyavāpas of waste land without revenue charges and yielding no tax — precisely evam made of a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Śiṣīpuñja, a kulyavāpa of waste land at Madhyamasr̥gālikā and a half kulyavāpa of waste land at Grāmakūṭagohālī — for the regular performance of offerings of perfume, incense, flowers, lamps, grain oblation, rice oblation, food oblation, etc., to the venerable Arhants dwelling in the three monasteries at Śiṣīpuñja, Śrīgohālī Note that this toponym, also found in the fragment from Baigram and the Baigram plate, here takes the place of Madhyamasr̥gālikā. and Grāmakūṭagohālī, superintended by the two ascetic masters Jinadāsa and Karṇaka; and to their inhabitants who are the Nigranthaputras who have defeated past and future karman for the sake of providing their food by beginning by those who use their cupped hands as bowl for morsels which were intended to be eaten by others, and for the sake of carrying out the repairs of breaches khaṇḍa and cracks phuṭṭa, all of this tad is to be given by you to the three monasteries vihāratrayyāṁ line 23, after you have separated them off with sixfold reeds ṣaṭkanala in a place that does not conflict with your own cultivation, and is to be protected in perpetuity in accordance with the law on permanent endowments.

It has been said by the venerable Vyāsa:

The one who would steal land given by himself or another becomes a worm in excrement and is cooked with his ancestors. This verse corresponds to the verse numbered 132 among the Stanzas on Bhūmidāna listed by Sircar see II170-200.

The giver of land revels sixty thousand years in heaven; the one who challenges a donation as well as the one who approves of the challenge will reside as many years in hell. This verse corresponds to the verse numbered 123 among the Stanzas on Bhūmidāna listed by Sircar see II170-200.

Year 198, Śrāvaṇa, day .

Description

This plate measures 13.5 cm in height and 23.3 cm in width. In its left margin we see a semicircular extension with a rectangular hole in the middle: this is where a seal would originally have been affixed. This seal is unfortunately lost. The plate has suffered badly from corrosion, but thanks to the repetition of long strings of text in two parts of the inscription it has been possible to read or restore most of it — 14 lines on the obverse, 13 on the reverse. It records a donation in favor of three monasteries whose affiliation with Jainism is revealed by a string of unique or rarely attested terms (see 45-50 and below). The grant must be compared with the Jagadishpur plate, dated 128 GE, and the Paharpur plate, dated 159 GE, both in favor of Jaina ascetics. This new grant is, like the Paharpur plate, issued from the capital of Puṇḍravardhana. It figures anonymous officials addressing householders in the localities Śiṣīpuñja, Madhyamasr̥gālikā and Grāmakūṭagohālī to order execution of a donation petitioned and paid for by a certain Nāgavasu. He spent a sum of 4 dīnāra coins, for a total of 2 kulyavāpas, covering three distinct parcels of waste land, to be given to the monasteries in the mentioned localities, for the sustenance of the monks, for the regular performance of worship, and for the maintenance of the buildings. A number of named record-keepers figure as authorities confirming the local price of a kulyavāpa of waste land. Two of the usual admonitory stanzas on land donation are cited in the final part of the inscription, which closes with a colophon containing a date in the month of Śrāvaṇa in year 198 of the Gupta era, corresponding to around 518 CE, making this the latest inscription but one of the Gupta period in the Puṇḍravardhana area.

Vaidika and Jaina beneficiaries

The majority of the beneficiaries of the grants recorded in our corpus are Vedic Brahmins, and the epigraphic material of early Bengal has already been analysed from the point of view of the social history of the Brahmins. The new plates published here do not contain any new data beyond additions to the prosopographic database that has been compiled and recently published by . I refer therefore to the same scholar’s article presenting a synthesis on the history of Brahmins in the early history of Bengal (), with the updated perspectives formulated in his more recent contribution (181-2: 181–182). Since they are not cited by Furui, I mention here also the important overview of earlier philological and historical work by and a recent study by , which offers important comments on the social realities behind the term cāturvidya ‘belonging to the community of [Brahmins] studying the four Vedas’, that we have encountered above in the Raktamālā plate #2, notably with regard to the question whether the term is evidence or not for the presence of Brahmins affiliated to the Atharvaveda. So far, the corpus has brought us evidence only of named Brahmins belonging to the White Yajurveda (vājasaneya) and Sāmaveda (chandoga) traditions.

The corpus also contains a small number of grants to temples (Baigram, Damodarpur #4), but none of the new plates belongs to this subgroup. Besides the two donations to Brahmins recorded in the Raktamālā plate #2 and in the Tāvīra grant, the new material contains a donation made to a group of three monasteries which I have above identified as Jaina. This identification was not immediately evident to me when I started studying the inscription, in part because of the poor state of preservation of the plate. I will present here the evidence which led to the conclusion that we are dealing with a grant to Jaina monks.

It will be helpful to start by repeating the two relevant passages from Nāgavasu’s grant, which express twice almost exactly the same information, restored and emended in accordance with my edition and notes above:

From śiṣīpuñja- to -saṁskārādyopayo

From śiṣīpuñja- to saṁskārādyartthaṁ-.

In interpreting these passages, I was for a long time on the wrong track, by imagining a term nirgranthaputrajita, whose prima facie meaning would have been ‘defeated by the sons of the Nirgrantha’, but which I considered to be an inverted samāsa (XLIV, 361), making it translatable as ‘by whom the sons of the Nirgrantha have been defeated’, which seemed like a potential designation of Buddhist or Ājīvika monks. My problems of interpretation were made worse by the presence of gaps in the first passage, by errors of spelling of certain terms or differences between the two passages, notably for the string that reads cānyādyapiṇḍa-pāṇipātrikādi- in emended form, and by the fact that the term kṣamaṇa (see below) is not found in any Sanskrit dictionaries. I only realized when most other pieces had fallen into place that the Prakrit equivalent khamaṇa is recorded in the , vol. 2, p. 553. The process of resolving these problems started by reading the above data from Nāgavasu’s grant in conjunction with parallel passages from two previously published inscriptions:

Jagadishpur, lines 8–12 (emended): Icchāmaḥ dakṣiṇāṅśaka-vīthyāṁ pecikāmra-siddhyāyatane Sircar read -vīthyā mecikāmrasiddhāyatane. No word mecikā is known, whereas pecikā is a known word, designating a kind of owl. bhagavatām arhatāṁ kāritaka-vihāre gulmagandhike cārhatāṁ pūjārtthaṁ kāritaka-prānta-vihārike tatraiva gulmagandhike bhagavatas sahasraraśmeḥ kāritaka-devakule ca bali-caru-satra-pravarttaṇāya khaṇḍa-phuṭṭa-pratisaṁskāra-karaṇāya gandha-dhūpa-tailopayogāya śaśvat-kālopabhogyākṣaya-nīvyā-m-apratikara-khila-kṣetrasya kulyavāpam ekaṁ krītvā dātuṁ

For offerings of bali, caru and sattra, for carrying out the repair of what is broken into pieces, and for requirements of perfumes, incense, and oil in the monastery commissioned for the venerable Arhants in the shrine of Pecikāmrasiddhi in the Dakṣiṇāṁśaka division, and in the little peripheral monastery commissioned for the purpose of worshipping the Arhants at Gulmagandhika, and in the temple commissioned for the Lord Sahasraraśmi i.e., Sūrya in the same Gulmagandhika, we wish to purchase and give one kulyavāpa of waste land without revenue charges by way of permanent endowment to be enjoyed in perpetuity..After which we read in lines 17–18: ṣaḍ-droṇavāpāḥ śravaṇakācāryya-balakuṇḍasya samāviśitāḥ, possibly to be emended and translated as follows: ṣaḍ-droṇavāpāḥ śramaṇakācāryya-balakuṇḍasya vihāre samāveśitāḥ ‘the six droṇavāpas were entrusted to the monastery of the śramaṇaka master Balakuṇḍa

Paharpur, lines 5–9 (emended):

tad arhathāneṇaiva kkrameṇāvayos sakāśād dīnāra-trayam upasaṁgr̥hyāvayoḥ sva-puṇyāpyāyanāya vaṭagohālyām evāsyāṅ kāśika-pañcastūpanikāyikanirgrantha-śramaṇācāryya-guha-nandi-śiṣya-praśiṣyādhiṣṭhita-vihāre bhagavatām arhatāṁ gandha-dhūpa-sumano-dīpādy-artthan talavāṭakanimittañ ca […] evam adhyarddhaṁ kṣetra-kulyavāpam akṣaya-nīvyā dātum So, in this very manner, be so kind as to take from both of us three dīnāras and — for the purpose of the merit of the both of us being increased — to give as permanent endowment, for the sake of perfume, incense, flowers and lamps, etc., for the venerable Arhants in the monastery at the same Vaṭagohālī here, overseen by the disciples and grand-disciples of the Nirgrantha śramaṇa master Guhanandin of the Kāśika-Pañcastūpa order and for the purpose of use as adjoining parcel: […] thus one-and-a-half kulyavāpa of land. The same basic information is repeated in lines 12–16 of the inscription.

With regard to the Jagadishpur plate, its editor D.C. Sircar unhesitatingly assumed that the monastic beneficiaries were Buddhists, and his great authority has led several subsequent scholars to accept this idea. 208-9 (and 28126) was more prudent and pointed to the significant parallels with the Paharpur plate which certainly concern Jaina beneficiaries, adding the important observation: The mere fact that it is not always easy to distinguish Buddhist and Jain inscriptions of this sort is […] in itself significant.. We will see below some examples of overlap between the technical terminology of the two religions. But to return to the affiliation of the Jagadishpur plate, which is the least explicit of the three grants, the sum of the evidence presented in this section persuades me that its beneficiaries were Jaina monks as well. Their abbot is here called śravaṇakācāryya, probably an error for śramaṇakācāryya.

The Paharpur plate speaks of a kāśika-pañca-stūpanikāyikanirgrantha-śramaṇācāryya, and the reading śramaṇa here is secure. This word can indicate not only Jainas, but also Buddhist and Ājīvikas. For the former, see the SSanchi stone inscription of Candragupta II, year 93 Gupta Era, line 2 — 250; for the latter, see the aforementioned plate dated 184 Gupta Era from Southeast Bengal, where we read (line 3–4, ed. ): pūrvva-maṇḍala-jayanāṭane bhagavataś catur-mmukha-mūrtter mmaṇibhadrasyāyatana-m-ājīvaka-bhadanta-śramaṇa-saṁghāya ‘for the sake of the community of respectable Ājīvika śramaṇas at the abode of the venerable Maṇibhadra in four-faced image in Jayanāṭana of Pūrvamaṇḍala’. But the Jaina affiliation of the Paharpur grant is beyond doubt, because the pañcastūpanikāya is a known name for a Jaina order See the paper by A.N. Upadhye “”, originally published in the 7 (1–2), 1948, and included in the same scholar’s volume of papers (279-83). See also 1682-85. and Jaina affiliation is implied also by the term nirgrantha. This is perhaps a fact too well known to require a bibliographic reference. Nevertheless, I may refer to §137. Incidentally, this word is consistently spelt nigrantha in the four occurrences in our corpus, perhaps because of subliminal influence from its Prakrit form niggantha.

Now our new inscription contains the variant kṣamaṇa, which is known only in Jaina context, and to my knowledge only once elsewhere in South Asian epigraphy, viz. in the Vidiśā stone image inscriptions of the time of mahārājādhirāja Śrī Rāmagupta. The best preserved of these three copies of what is basically a single text, labeled A in Bhandarkar’s edition (231-4), reads as follows: The angle brackets indicate restorations of elements omitted in the text, after 1829 and 46312, whose translation I also adopt with only minor modifications. However, for the reading cellaka- I differ from Bakker, and from 333277, who believe the reading cannot be anything else than celūka. In my opinion, reading -lla- is perfectly possible in view of the estampage published in V A and expected in the light of the argument brought forward by 23916, while a dignitary named Cellaka is attested in the Mastakaśvabhra plate, line 2 (29).

bhagavato rhataḥ candraprabhasya pratimeyaṁ kāritā ma-

hārājādhirāja-śrī-rāmaguptena Upadeśāt pāṇipā-

trika-candra-kṣam⟨aṇācāryya-kṣamaṇa-śramaṇa-praśiṣya Ācā-

ryya-sarppasena-kṣamaṇaśiṣyasya golakyāntyā⟨ḥ⟩ satputrasya cellakṣamaṇasyeti ||

This image of the Lord, the Arhant Candraprabha, was commissioned by the mahārājādhirāja Śrī Rāmagupta, at the instigation of Cellakṣamaṇa, son of Golakyāntī, who is the pupil of the preceptor Sarpasenakṣamaṇa and the grand-pupil of the pāṇipātrika Candrakṣamaṇa, preceptor ācārya and forbearing monk kṣamaṇaśramaṇa.

In his recent article giving a useful overview of what is known about Jainism in North India during the Gupta period, 23916 affirms that there is no doubt that the expression appended to these monks’s names is the same as the Prākrit honorific khamāsamaṇa (~ Sanskrit kṣamāśramaṇa), and has perhaps been misheard or misunderstood as being in a quasi-rhyming relationship with -śramaṇa by a scribe unfamiliar with Jain usage. Although the new inscription may require rethinking of these matters, and the Vidiśā image inscriptions may have to be reinterpreted in such a way that kṣamaṇācārya stands as a unit, as it clearly does in our text, the main point of importance for my discussion is that the use of the term kṣamaṇa may be considered a clear indicator of the Jaina affiliation of the beneficiaries of Nāgavasu’s grant. The Vidiśā image inscriptions also contain another Jaina technical term that occurs in our inscription, namely pāṇipātrika, which has been elucidated by 239-4018: The expression pāṇipātrika is a common epithet normally used of monks of the Digambara sect who differentiate themselves from the Śvetāmbaras who use alms bowls. However, the practice of using the hands as an alms bowl was also prescribed amongst the Śvetāmbaras for advanced monks following the jinakalpa, the ‘practice of the Jinas’, a more intense mode of renunciant life. As noted above, the honorific kṣamāśramaṇa, however represented in the inscription, seems to be characteristic of Śvetāmbara usage, and the conclusion must be that the monks in question were Śvetāmbaras, although the term may not have had a formally sectarian sense at this particular time I am unable to find any other occurrence of the term anyādyapiṇḍa, which is joined here with pāṇipātrika, and the reading is in both instances open to doubt. If I am correct in reading this term, it appears to give expression to the rule that Jaina monks “were required not to accept any food or water especially prepared for them” (110). For more details on this rule, see 272 §154:

The alms, above all, must not be prepared in advance, neither for receivers of alms in general (āhākamma) nor for him personally who is expected to ask for them (uddesiya), no more than they may be sent for (abhi-haḍa) or bought (kīya-gaḍa) or set aside from one’s own meal (ceiya K. 2, 25-28, Dasā 2, 4, Nis. 10, 4, Āyār. I 36, 20, II 50, 20; Dasav. 3, 2).

Let me now try to explicate the sequence nigrantha-putra-jitānāgatabhyāgatānānta-nivāsināñ ca which is clearly preserved only on the reverse of the plate, and whose precise reading on the front can no longer be known, but which I have proposed to emend as follows: nirgrantha-putra-jitānāgatābhyāgatānān tan-nivāsināñ ca. The position of ca after the two genitive plural forms seems to be due to the author’s desire to establish a syntactic parallelism between, first, the long clause ending in pravarttanāya and, second, the long clause ending in pratisaṁskārādyopayogāya/pratisaṁskārādyartthaṁ. As regards the elements anāgata, abhyāgata and tannivāsin, it seems to me that the author was consciously playing with terminology that was used by his Buddhist contemporaries. Occurrences of these elements in Buddhist contexts have been discussed in a recent article by 67, with reference to 6th-century Sanskrit inscriptions from the Andhra region: “the dvandva āgata-anāgata, distinguishing between those who have arrived and will arrive in the future to reside at a given monastery, is uncommon in Indian inscriptions, and the term occurs almost exclusively in Pāli literature. Occurrences of the compound may thus be found in the Pāli Vinaya’s discussion of how residences should be dedicated to the Saṅgha, the locus classicus being the gift of the Jetavana by Anāthapiṇḍada.” In his discussion, he cites and translates the first three of the following epigraphical Sanskrit passages, the last two being added here by me:

caturddigabhyāgatāryyasaṁghaparibhogāya ‘for the enjoyment of the noble community coming from the four directions’ (, EIAD, 180, lines 27–8) -mahāvihāranivāsyāgatānāgatacāturddiśāryyavarabhikṣusaṅghacatuṣpratyayaparibhogārtthan ‘for the enjoyment of the four requisites by the community of noble and excellent monks of the four quarters, current and future residents of the mahāvihāra’ (, EIAD 186, lines 22–24) svakāritavihāre ratnattrayopayogāya catuṣpratyayanimittaṁ bhagnasphuṭita kimmājuvdevyā Āgatānāgatajetavanavāsisthaviracāturddiśāryyabhikṣusaṅgha grāmo nisr̥ṣṭo ‘Kimmājuvdevī endowed the village to the community of noble monks of the four quarters, current and future residents of the Jetavana, the Sthaviras, to be used for the Three Jewels in the vihāra she had herself commissioned to be built and, in particular for the four requisites and for the repair of broken and shattered parts ’ (Arakan copper-plate, ca 600 CE, lines 11–12 — ed. ) kuberanagarasvatalaniviṣṭayaśonandikāritavaḍḍavihāre tannivāsicaturddigabhyāgatāryyabhikṣusaṅghasya ca cīvarapiṇḍapātaśayanāsanaglānapratyayabhaiṣajyapariṣkāropayogāya ‘in the Vaḍḍa = old? monastery erected by Yaśonandin on the city territory svatala of Kuberanagara, for the use for robes, alms-food, beds and seats, medicine to cure the sick of the noble order of monks coming from the four directions and residing there’ (Ambalasa Plates of Śīlāditya I, year 290 of the Valabhī = Gupta Era, line 26–28 — ed. and transl. Schmiedchen forthc.) caturddigabhyyāgatāya śramaṇapuṅgavāvasathāyāryyasaṅghāya ‘for the community of noble ones coming from the four quarters, which is the abode of most eminent ascetics’ (Sanchi stone inscription of Candragupta II, year 93 Gupta Era, line 2 — 250)

It will be noticed that none of these passages gives the precise combination anāgatābhyāgata, which indeed I am unable to find in any other context. I tentatively interpret the apparently unique expression jitānāgatābhyāgata as a reconfiguration of in origin Buddhist terms to express the Jaina tenet of eradication of past abhyāgata and future anāgata karman, Admittedly, I have so far identified no clearer expression of this idea than the following passages translated from the Āyāraṅgasutta (81):

The sage, perceiving the double (karman), proclaims the incomparable activity, he, the knowing one; knowing the current of worldliness, the current of sinfulness, and the impulse, (15) Practising the sinless abstinence from killing, he did no acts, neither himself nor with the assistance of others; he to whom women were known as the causes of all sinful acts, he saw the true state of the world. (16)

In his note on ‘double (karman)’, Jacobi explains the meaning to be present and future, presumably based on the commentary. But in another passage, translated by 32-3, we read: There is no past thing, nor is there a future one; So opine the Tathagatas. He whose karman has ceased and conduct is right, who recognises the truth stated above and destroys sinfulness thinks: What is discontent and what is pleasure? not subject to either, one should live; Giving up all gaiety, circumspect and restrained, one should lead a religious life. although I cannot exclude other possibilities, among which the most likely one seems to be that the intended meaning of nirgranthaputrajitānāgatābhyāgatānān was ‘of those who come in the present abhyāgata and in the future anāgata, the conquerors jita among the Nirgranthaputras’ and that the conjunction ca was intended to distinguish wandering ascetics from permanent residents tannivāsinām. Several of the elements from Nāgavasu’s grant analyzed so far find significant parallels in the epigraphic data from Jaina epigraphy in South India assembled in , with regard to the purposes specified in such grants and the importance of teacher-disciple lines.

The designation nirgranthaputra is rather commonly used in Buddhist sources to designate Jainas or Ājīvikas, and it often occurs as a ‘surname’ for the heretic teacher Satyaka, or Saccaka Nigaṇṭhaputta in Pali (39). A long passage that is particularly relevant for our copper plate issued from Puṇḍravardhana is found in the Aśokāvadāna: tasmiṁś ca samaye puṇḍavardhananagare nirgranthopāsakena buddhapratimā nirgranthasya pādayor nipatitā citrārpitā | upāsakenāśokasya rājño niveditaṁ | śrutvā ca rājñābhihitaṁ śīghram ānīyatāṁ | tasyordhvaṁ yojanaṁ yakṣāḥ śr̥ṇvanti | adho yojanaṁ nāgāḥ | yāvat taṁ tatkṣaṇena yakṣair upanītaṁ | dr̥ṣṭvā ca rājñā ruṣitenābhihitam | puṇḍavardhane sarve ājīvikāḥ praghātayitavyāḥ | yāvad ekadivase ’ṣṭādaśasahasrāṇy ājīvikānāṁ praghātitāni | In the meantime, in the city of Puṇḍavardhana, a lay follower of Nirgrantha Jñātiputra drew a picture showing the Buddha bowing down at the feet of his master. A Buddhist devotee reported this to King Aśoka, who then ordered the man arrested and brought to him immediately. The order was heard by the nāgas as far as a yojana underground, and by the yakṣas a yojana up in the air, and the latter instantly brought the heretic before the king. Upon seeing him, Aśoka flew into a fury and proclaimed: “All of the Ājīvikas in the whole of Puṇḍavardhana are to be put to death at once!” And on that day, eighteen thousand of them were executed.

I cite the text after the edition of 67-8, and the translation of 232. The reading puṇḍavardhananagare is of course to be corrected to puṇḍravardhananagare, as in the edition by K.P. Jayaswal used by P. Balcerowicz who has cited the same passage in his recent book (270), and whose comments must be quoted here: The story is clearly fictitious and ahistorical for no images of the Buddha or the Jina are known to have existed at the time of Aśoka, and the account of the execution is similarly fictitious and ahistorical. Nevertheless, the legend may preserve a grain of truth, namely that Puṇḍravardhana had once been another centre of the Ājīvikas. Of note is that the passage is one of several examples when the term nirgrantha is erroneously used by the Buddhists to denote an Ājīvika. Other evidence for such confusion on the part of Buddhist authors is added by Balcerowicz elsewhere in his book (278-9, 321). But he does not mention that the Chinese transmission in the same passage of the Aśokāvadāna, which I am able to access through the translation of 278-9, uses characters corresponding to the term nirgranthaputra even where the Sanskrit transmission switches to ājīvikas. Since the Sanskrit text is available only in very late manuscripts, whereas the Chinese text translated by Przyluski dates to the 3rd century CE, there is some reason to take the Chinese version at face value and read the passage as evidence of Jaina rather than Ājīvika presence in Puṇḍravardhana in the first half of the first millennium CE.

This can be corroborated with textual evidence from the Jaina tradition itself. For in Jacobi’s paraphrase of the Sthavirāvalī of Bhadrabāhu’s we read (288-9): I have standardized the transliteration system. The corresponding passage in the same scholar’s 1879 edition of the text is found on pp. 78–79. Ārya Bhadrabāhu of the Prācīna gotra, who had four disciples of the Kāśyapa gotra: a. Godāsa, founder of the Godāsa Gaṇa, which was divided into four Śākhās: α. The Tāmraliptikā Śākhā, β. The Koṭivarṣīyā Śākhā, γ. The Puṇḍravardhanīyā Śākhā, and δ. The Dāsīkharbatikā Śākhā. b. Agnidatta, c. Gaṇadatta, d. Somadatta. We see here that Jaina’s were known to be settled in ancient Bengal not only at Puṇḍravardhana but also at such important known sites as Tāmralipti and Koṭivarṣa.See the map, Pl. 1 17.