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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
PART B
TEXT:
TRANSLATION: The label refers to a female figure raising her right hand and standing on a makara. Sudarśana occurs as the name of a Yaksha in the Mahām. p. 231, also of a Nāgarāja, ibid. 246 (cp. B 37), but Sudarśanā does not seem to be known in Buddhist literature. In the Mbh. 13, 2, 4 ff., Sudarśanā is the daughter of king Duryodhana of Māhishmatī and the river goddess (devanadi) Narmadā. She was so beautiful that Agni fell in love with her and married her. I am inclined to identify the Sudarśanā of the Epic with the Yakshiṇī represented in the sculpture. The daughter of a river goddess and wife of a god may well have been called a Yakshiṇī in the language of this time, and her vāhana, the Makara, seems to indicate that she was the child of a river and perhaps a river goddess herself, just as her daughter-in-law Oghavatī, of whom it is said in the Mbh. that half of her became a river (ibid. V. 168). Her descent from the river Narmadā and the king of Māhishmatī shows that she has been a local deity of Central India. She could therefore be very well known and adored in Bhārhut also. B 11 (717); PLATES XVI, XXXII ON the same pillar as No. A 71, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 17). The inscription is engraved in continuation of No. A 71. Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 111; StBh. p. 22; 132, No. 6, and Pl. XXIII and LIII; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 63, No. 26 (second part), and Pl.; IA. Vol. XXI (1892), p. 229, No. 26 (second part); Barua-Sinha, BI. (1926), p. 73, No. 184; Barua, Barh. Vol. II (1934), p. 71 f., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. LXIV (75); Lüders, Bharh. (1941), p. 15 f.
TEXT:
TRANSLATION:
The goddess is represented standing on an elephant under an Aśoka tree in full
flower.[2] With her right hand she grasps a branch above her head, while her left arm and
her left leg embrace the stem of the tree which is entwined also by the elephant’s tusk. The
goddess has a counterpart in the goddess Mahākokā represented on a pillar at Pataora
(No. B 12). Barua-Sinha boldly translate Kokā by hunter-goddess, but there is absolutely
nothing in the outward appearance of the goddess nor in her name to warrant this meaning.
Sk. koka denotes the wolf, the chakravāka and a certain insect. Lexicographers give it also
the meaning of frog and date-tree and quote it as a surname of Vishṇu. As a personal
name it occurs already in the Ś.Br. and Koka is perhaps the name of a river. But koka has nowhere the meaning of dog,[3] as supposed by Barua-Sinha, and the fact that in the [1]The first akshara has an i-sign and an u-sign. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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