No. 29. Nаgаrjunakoндa prakrit inscription of Gautamиputra Vijaya-Щаtakarнi,
year 6.
H. Sarkar - El, XXXVI No. 33;
The subjoined pillar-inscription was discovered on the 29th May 1962, at Nаgаrjunakoндa
(also spelt as Nаgаrjunikoндa. Macron over e and o has not been used in this article),
District Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, in the course of the removal of the antiquities from the
submergence levels to the new Museum premises. The actual findspot is quite close to site
126, and the ancient burning ghат. In fact, the inscribed pillar was re-used at some
late date as a balustrade of a ghат on the Krishna, but the area as a whole being a
narrow strip of land in between the river-bank and the Nаgаrjunakoндa hill, is not at
present easily accessible, specially during floods. The record has been noticed in Ancient
India, No. 16 (1962), p. 84, where the date of the regnal year has been incorrectly read
as 8 instead of 6.
The green limestone pillar on which the inscription is engraved might have originally
belonged to a pillared hall. Subsequently the pillar was re-used in the construction of
the ghат referred to above. The occurrence of a few very defaced letters in late Nаgarи
characters on the other side of the same pillar is likely to suggest that this ghат was
in use, if not constructed-the latter, however, by no means an impossible proposition-in
the late мedieval times. It is worth noting that architecturally this pillar, with
rectangular upper and lower portions, middle portion being octagonal, is similar in type
to those of the Ikшvаku period. The inscription is engraved just below the octagonal
part of the shaft which is devoid of any carving. The extant height of the pillar,
including the undressed part, is 175 cm. the width and thickness being 30 cm. and 22.5 cm.
respectively.
The inscription, consisting of four lines, covers a space of 30 cm. by 16 cm., the fourth
line having only four letters. The epigraph is written in Brаhmи characters of about the
third century A.D. and the language is Prakrit. Palaeographically the present record,
despite a few noticeable differences, is not far removed in point of time from the records
of the Ikшvаkus from Nаgаrjunakoндa (cf. above, Vol. XX, pp. 16-37.). The strokes on
the top as well as at the bottom are not very long drawn and the letters are somewhat
broader in the present case.
TEXT
1 [Na]mo bhagavato Agapogalasa [|*]
2 raгo Gotamiputasa Siri-Vijaya-Sa-
3 takaннisa sava 6 gi pa 4 diva Vesа-
4 [kha] puнima ||