Inscription for installation of Sarasvatī by Yajñavarāha at Banteay Srei (K. 575) EpiDoc encoding Dominic Goodall intellectual authorship of edition Dominic Goodall DHARMA Pondicherry DHARMA_INSCIK00575

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Copyright (c) 2019-2025 by Dominic Goodall.

 2019-2025 DHARMAbase In one anuṣṭubh stanza, this inscription records the installation of Vāgīśvarī by Yajñāvarāha.

The project DHARMA has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 809994).

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tena yajñavarāheṇa bhaktyā vāgīśvarīnimā vidyāgurudvayasyāpi sthāpitā sthitivedinā
If there was once punctuation at the ends of the half-stanzas (as Finot prints), it is not visible in the EFEO estampage n. 426.

That same Yajñavarāha, knower of what is established practice, installed a statue of Sarasvatī out of devotion to both api his two teachers of knowledge.

Yajñavarāha, qui connaît la stabilité, a établi pieusement une statue de Vāgīśvarī et celles de deux Vidyāguru.

Finot's French translation suggests that there were statues of both of Yajñavarāha's professors, which is perhaps not impossible, but there is only one word for statue, namely nimā, which is singular and in compound with vāgīśvarī°. It seems therefore worth recording the possibility, as my English translation attempts, that there was only one statue, of Sarasvatī (who tends to be called Vāgīśvarī in Śaiva contexts), erected out of devotion to or in honour of two teachers. As for the use of the term vidyāguru, it might be to distinguish these figures from other sorts of guru, for instance from Yajñavarāha's initiator (dīkṣāguru). Archeological evidence on the site might reveal how many images were in fact installed there .

First edited from EFEO estampage n. 426 by Finot with translation into French and commentary (). Re-edited here from the same estampage by Dominic Goodall.

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