North Indian Inscriptions

PART B

ascribed to the person sacrificed in Nos. 2-4. Just the demoniac appearance makes the man suitable to be offered to some deity^[1].

B 55 (786); PLATES XX, XLIII

ON the left outer face of the return corner pillar of the northern gate, now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta (P 28). The inscription is engraved on the roof of a building in the lower relief. Edited by Cunningham, PASB. 1874, p. 112; StBh. (1879), p. 79 ff.; 137, No. 75, and Pl. XVIII and LIV; Hoernle, IA. Vol. XI (1882), p. 31 f., No. 26; Hultzsch, ɀDMG. Vol. XL (1886), p. 70, No. 86, and Pl.; IA. Vol. II (1934), p. 155 ff., and Vol. III (1937), Pl. XCI (136); Lüders, Bārh. (1941), p. 133; Lüders, Das Vidhurapaṇḍitajātaka, ɀDMG. XCIX (1949), pp. 103-130, esp. p. 115.

TEXT:
Vitura-Punakiyajatakaṁ

TRANSLATION:
The Jātaka which treats of Vitura (Vidura) and Punaka (Pūrṇaka).

  The Jataka represented on the pillar bears in the Pāli collection the title of Vidhurapaṇḍitajātaka (No. 545). Vidhura is the name of the Bodhisattva, when born as the kattar^[2] of the Kuru king Dhanañjaya in Indapatta. Vimalā the wife of the Nāga kings Varuṇa, having heard of his virtues desires to listen to his discourses on the law. In order to induce the king to bring him to the Nāga world, she pretends to have a sick woman’s longing for his heart The Nāga king instructs his daughter Irandatī to seek for a husband who will be able to fetch the sage. When the Yaksha Puṇṇaka^[3] sees Irandatī dancing on a mountain in the Himālaya, he falls in love with her. He rides on his aerial horse to the Kuru king and challenges him to play at dice, risking Vidhura as the king’s stake, his own stake being the most precious jewel. The Yaksha wins the game and carries off Vidhura, making him hold on to the tail of his horse. When they arrive on the summit of Mount Kāḷagiri^[4]. Puṇṇaka
__________________________

^[1]Compare the use of such a man in the concluding ceremony of the Aśvamedha; AO. XVI, p. 142f.
^[2]The meaning of the word kattar is given in the Pāli Dictionary as ‘an officer of the king, the king’s messenger’. Cowell translates ‘minister’, Dutoit ‘helper’, Francis (V, 113 f.) in addressing a person ‘my Ancient’. But the kattar of the Gāthās has undoubtedly the same meaning as Sk. kshattṛi. The old form khattar is still retained in D. 1, 112; 128, and probably khattar was changed to kattar only in Ceylon where the meaning of the expression was on more clear, and where the word was taken as ‘maker ‘ from kri, or perhaps as ‘cutter’ from kṛit. Kshttṛi derived from kshad ‘to carve. to slaughter, to prepare dishes’ originally meant ‘the carver of meat, the server, the distributor of food in a noble household’. (For a detailed discussion on the word kshattṛi as it appears in the Sk. literature from the Atharvaveda onwards see Lüders, ɀDMG. XCIX, p. 115 ff.).
^[3]Punaka in the inscription is naturally only written for Punnaka; Punnaka in the eastern language, which does not know the lingual ṇ, corresponds to Pūrṇaka.
^[4]The mountain Kāḷāgiri, where Puṇṇaka intends to kill Vidhura (G. 196) lies in the vicinity of Rājagaha. Kālāgiri is represented in the SnA. (201) by Kālapabbata, and is certainly identical with Kālasilā, a rock raised, according to D. II, 116, at Isigili, the Ṛishigiri of the Sk. texts, near Rājagaha. The home of the poet of the Gāthas was the eastern part of India as is to be seen from his familiarity with the localities and local stories of the east. The wonderful jewel, which Puṇṇaka intends to use as his stake in the game, lies on the summit of the Vepulla (G. 36ff.), one of the five mountains surrounding Rājagaha. It is apparently identical with the modern Vipulagiri; see Cunningham, ASR. Vol. 1, p. 21. Also the Vipulaḥ in Mbh. 2, 21, 2 f. goes probably back to the name of the mountain. Thus the jewel on the mountain in our Jātaka owes its origin to the local tradition of Rājagaha (for details see Lüders, l.c. p. 113). That the fairy-tale of Vidhura and Puṇṇaka has home in eastern India is also shown by the fact that it was originally composed in the eastern language. In the Gāthās many peculiarities of this language appear. In Gāthās 2 and 5 and in the little song of Irandatī (G. 7) even the nom. sg. ending in –e has been retained (see Lüders, l.c. p. 112).