25. Inscription in cave IV at Ajaнта.

D. C. SlRCAR, EI, XXXIII No. 49. An inscription was recently discovered on the pedestal of the huge Buddha image in the shrine inside Cave IV at Ajaнта in the Aurangabad District of Bombay State, Before the discovery of this record, it was generally believed that the cave bears no epigraphic records and therefore its age was a subject of speculation.
The inscription is a votive record written in two lines only. The writing covers an area about 5 feet 6 inches long and about 4 1/2 inches high. Individual letters are about 1 inch in height although conjuncts and consonants with vowel-marks are bigger in size. The preservation of the writing is not satisfactory. Some of the letters are damaged here and there, while six letters are totally lost about the middle of line 2.
The characters of the inscription closely resemble those of the epigraph\1 of the time of the Vаkатaka king Hariшенa in Cave XVI at Ajaнта and of the Ghaтоtkacha cave inscription\2 at the village of Jaкglа about fifteen miles from Fardapur near Ajaнта, which mentions king Dеvasеna of the Vаkaтaka dynasty.
Since the Vаkатaka kings Dеvasеna and Hariшенa flourished about the second half of the fifth century A.D., our inscription, which is slightly later than their records, may be assigned to the first half of the sixth century. It may be pointed out, in connection with the date of the record, that the earlier writers on the history of the Vаkатakas entertained a wrong view in regard to the chronology of that dynasty. Some of these writers assigned the reigns of king Dеvasеna and his son and successor Hariшенa to c. 475-500 A. D. and c. 500-20 A. D. respectively.\3 But they mixed up the Nаndиvardhana-Pravarapura and Vatsagulma branches of the family and wrongly made Dеvasеna and Hariшенa of the Vatsagulma branch the successors of their contemporaries of the Nаndиvardhana-Pravarapura branch.
Another group of scholars assigned Pravarasеna II of the Nаndиvardhana-Pravarapura branch, who was supposed to have been a predecessor of Dеvasеna and Hariшенa, to the eighth century A. D. on the basis of the identification of his maternal grandfather Dеvagupta with Аdityasеna's son of that name ruling over Magadha about 680-700 A. D.\4 It is, however, now known that the two branches of the royal family sprang from Vindyaщakti's son Pravarasеna I, the end of whose reign is referred to in the historical section of the Purанas, which was compiled when the Gupta empire was confined to Bihar and Eastern U. P., i.e. about the second quarter on the fourth century A. D. We now also know that the maternal grandfather of Pravarasеna II of Nаndиvardhana-Pravarapura was not Dеvagupta of the so-called Later Gupta dynasty but the Imperial Gupta monarch Chandragupta II who ruled in the period 376-413 A. D. In the Vatsagulma branch, Pravarasеna I was followed by: (1) his son Sarvasеna; (2-3) his sons Vindhyaщakti II and Pрthivишенa; (4) Pravarasеna II, son of Pрthiviшенa; (5) his son whose name is lost; (6) his son Dеvasеna; and (7) Dеvasеna's son Hariшенa. In the other house, Pravarasеna I was followed on the throne by: (1) his grandson Rudrasеna I, son of Gautamиputra; (2) his son Pрthvишенa I; (3) his son Rudrasеna II; (4-6) his queen Prabhаvatиguptа, daughter of Chandragupta II, and sons Dаmоdarasеna and Pravarasеna II; (7) Pravarsеna's son Narеndrasеna; and (8) his son Pрthvишенa II.
Since Sarvasеna began to rule about the second quarter of the fourth century, it is difficult to believe that the reign of his grandson's great-grandson Harishенa extended beyond 500 A.D. Hariшенa's father Dеvasеna again was the sixth in descent from Pravarasеna I exactly as Pravarasеna II of the other branch, who was the daughter's son of Chandragupta II (376-413 A. D.) and could not have ended his reign much later than the middle of the fifth century A. D. Since, however, Gautamиputra of the other branch apparently predeceased his father and did not rule, Narеndrasеna, son and successor of Pravarasеna II of that branch, may be regarded as a contemporary of Devasеna of Vatsagulma. Even then the rule of Dеvasеna and Hariшенa should have to be attributed to a period before the close of the fifth century.\5
The inscription is written in Sanskrit. The first sentence states that the object on which the inscription is incised (i.e. the Buddha image) was the dеya-dharma or gift of a person named Mаthura who was "the son of Abhayanandin and Skandavasu and belonged to the Kаrvaтiyа gоtra. Apparently Abhayanandin was the name of Mаthura's father and Skandavasu that of his mother, although female names like Skandavasu are not often met with.\6 The Kаrvaтiyа gоtra is not known from ancient Indian literature. Mаthura is further described as the Vihаrasvаmin or 'the owner of the monastery'. The monastery referred to is undoubtedly Cave IV at Ajanта, in which the image of the Buddha bearing the inscription under study is' enshrined.
The importance of the inscription lies in the welcome light it throws on the controversy about the age of Cave IV at Ajaнта. The difference of opinion amongst scholars is due to the fact that, in the absence of any inscription in the said Cave, they had so long to depend entirely on the less specific evidence such as that of architectural and sculptural style. Besides the absence of inscriptions in many of the caves, another fact contributing to the confusion regarding the dates of the Ajaнта caves is the wrong date assigned by earlier writers to kings Dеvasеna and Hariшенa of the Vаkатaka family, during whose rule respectively the Ghaтоtkacha Cave and Cave XVI at Ajaнта were excavated. This point has already been discussed above.
A number of writers on the subject are inclined to assign Cave IV at Ajaнта to a date between the sixth and eighth centuries A. D.\7 They divide twentynine caves at Ajaнта into two broad groups, the first of which is called Early or Hиnayаna and Caves VIII-XIII are included in it by some scholars. This group of caves is assigned to the period between the second century B.C. and the second or third century A. D. The second group, called Later or Mahаyаna and supposed to be removed from the other by a considerable period of time, is subdivided into two sub-groups. To the first of these two are assigned Caves XIV-XX believed to have been excavated in the sixth century due to Cave XVI bearing an inscription mentioning Vаkатaka Hariшенa whose reign was assigned to the age in question, while Caves VI-VII of the same class are attributed to a date between 450 and 550 A. D. Caves I-V and XXI-XXIX, constituting the second sub-group of the Later or Mahаyаna group and assigned to the period between 500 and 650 A. D. or between the sixth or seventh and the seventh or eighth centuries A.D., are called 'the latest Caves at Ajaнта' and 'the most ornate group of the whole series'. According to these scholars, therefore, Cave IV, the largest Vihаra at Ajaнта, belongs to the latest group of Ajaнта Caves which may be as late as the seventh or eighth century A. D. There is, however, another view, according to which Cave IV is the earliest Mahаyаna Vihаra at Ajaнта and 'was probably excavated in the third century A.D. or still earlier' though 'the decorative work may have been done at a later date'.\8 But the inscription under study now shows that the cave was excavated about the first half of the sixth century A. D.
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1. ASWI, Vol. 1, pp. 53, 128 ff. and Plate LVI; above, Vol. XXVI, pp. 142 ff, and Plate facing p. 143; etc. (DS)
2. ASWI, op. cit. pp. 138 ff. and Plate IX. (DS)
3. ASWI, op. cit, p. 128. (DS)
4. See CII, Vol. III, Introduction, p. 15. (DS)
5. For the dates of these Vаkаtaka kings, see The Classical Age, pp. 177 ff. (DS)
6. It does not appear to be a single name reading Abhayanandiskandavasu. It ia also doubtful whether we can suggest Abhayanandin alias Skandavasu.
Note to fn.3 from additions: For the female name Nаgavasu with the honorific щrи sufixed to it, see above, Vol. XXI, p. 64. (DS)
7. J. Fergusson and J. Burgess, The Cave Temples of India, 1880, pp. 80 ff.; J. Burgess ASWI, Vol. IV (Report on the Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions, 1876-79), pp. 43 ff.; J. Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, 2nd ed., pp. 188 ff.; A. Coomaraswamy, Hislory of Indian and Indonesian Art, pp. 28, 76, 96 etc. There is diiference among scholars as regards the date of individual caves. (DS)
8. G. Yazdani, Ajanta, Part III, Text, 1946, p. 7. (DS)