PART II.

PART II.

Cavern with Brāhmī inscription at Mālakoṇḍa,Nellore District.
  1. The earliest record of the year’s collection comes from the Mālakoṇḍa hill in the Kandukur taluk of the Nellore district (No. 531). It is in the Prākṛit language and is engraved on the brow of a projecting boulder of rock on the hill, in early Brāhmī characters attributable to the 3rd century B. C. (Plate I). The record which is somewhat damaged registers the gift made by a certain Siri Vīri-Seṭhi, son Nanda-Seṭhi of the Aruvāhi(ḷa)-kula, the gift apparently being the cavern over which it is engraved. The overhanging rock forms a spacious natural cavern below it, which is now called the Pārvatī guhā. The Seṭhi donor mentioned above probably provided the cavern with the drip-ledge and slightly smoothened out the rough walls of the cavern and provided other amenities so as to make it fit for the occupation of the (Jaina of Bauddha) months, who must have resorted to this spot at this early period. Several such caverns have been discovered in the Madura, Ramnad and Tinnevelly districts in South India, and some of them have been found to contain stone beds hewn out of the rock and provided with stone pillows for the use of monks, who had used those caverns as their place of retreat during the four months of relaxation (chāturmāsya) in the rainy season. Jaina or Bauddha vestiges of a later date have been discovered also in the South Arcot, North Arcot and Chingleput districts, but the fact that such a cavern with an inscription of the 3rd century B. C. should have been discovered in the Nellore district is of great interest to the student of the history of Buddhism and Jainism in South India.

The Aruvāḷas.
  The epithet ‘Aruvā[ḷa]-kulasa,’ i.e., ‘who belonged to the Aruvā[ḷa] family’ applied to the donor Vīri-Seṭhi in this records is of interest. It may be noted in this connection that the tract of country round about Kāñchī and to the north of it up to Nellore was in ancient times included in the division called the Aruvāvaḍatalai, and that it corresponded to the country inhabited, according to Ptolemy, (History of the Tamils, P. T. Srinivasa Ayyangar, page 318) by the tribe named Aruvarnoi in the 2nd century A. D. Herein probably lies the origin of the term ‘Aravas’ applied to the Tamils by the Telugu people.

   On the same hill in the vicinity of this cavern, there is another which has been later converted into a shrine for god Narasiṁha ; but as a modern maṇḍapa has been put in front of this cavern, it is not possible to ascertain whether this was also a retreat for the monks, and whether it contains any early inscriptions. A similar cavern with the characteristic drip-line cut in the roofs of the rock, but without any inscription, was also discovered during this year in the hillock called Siddhulakoṇḍa near Saidāpuram in the Rapur taluk of the same district. The images enshrined and worshipped in this cavern are definitely Jaina in character.

   Amaravati Brahmi Inscription.
   2. The next record in point of chronology is No. 529 which comes from Dharaṇikōta nears Amarāvati, the famous Buddhist centre in the Guntur district. The slab on which this Brāhmī record is engraved was recently brought to light by Mr. Seshadri Sastri, B.A., L.T., of Guntur who has since published the inscription in the Epigraphia Indica (Vol. XXIV, p. 256). It is broken at the top and so a few lines of the record in which the name of the king should have been mentioned are lost. The writing resembles that of another record found at Amarāvati dated in the regin of Vāsiṭhīputa Puḷumāvi (2nd century A. D.), which relates to the setting up of a Dharmachakra at the western gate by the house holder Kahūtara and some others (Burgess─Buddhist Stupas at Amaravati and Jaggayapeta, . 100 and Plate LVI, No. 1). The present records refers to the Mahāvihāra at Dhañakaḍa and to the installation of a Dhamachaka-dhayō (Dharmachakra-dhvaja) at its eastern entrance by Amakha Atabēra of Aṁgalōka (country ?), son of Vīrakhada (Vīraskanda) and the body-guard (aṁgaraka= aṅgarakshaka) of the koḍubika (kuṭumbika?) Khadanāga (Skandanāga). This gift appears to have been left in the charge of the monks of the Pūrvaśaila sect. In the Nāgārjunakoṇḍa inscriptions reference is made to the Pūrvaśaila and the Avaraśaila, the East Hill and the West Hill (monasteries), at which two vihāras
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