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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
N. P. Joshi, Curator of the Archaeological Museum at Mathurā, kindly supplied the author with a photograph of a partly damaged inscribed stone relief (Mathurā Museum Accession No. 65.15.4), showing in the centre the dominating figure of a powerful four-armed man— clad in a dhotī, the upper part of his body naked (the “Śrīvatsa” symbol on the chest), with two arms akimbo while the other two are lifted up each holding a round object, the legs planted wide apart, the abnormally broad neck decorated with a beautiful necklace. To the right of the head, which unfortunately is lost, a small female is flying in the air. To the proper left side of the man an adorant stands below a tree whereas to the proper right side two more figures are in front of another tree, one person standing in the background and the other, probably, kneeling (his upper body bent backwards), facing the proper right side of the relief (i.e. in the direction of the beginning of the inscription) where the stone is broken off.
page 7 note 1 cf. the many instances with Prakritic equivalents of e.g. Skt. Bodhisattvaḥ pratiṣṭhāpitaḥ in Lüders, H., Mathurā Inscriptions, ed. Janert, K. L. (Goettingen, 1961)Google Scholar, §1, §24, §72, §73, §126, §136, §150, or §137: nā(gaṃ) prattistāpenti, etc.
page 7 note 2 cf. e.g. Lüders-Janert, op. cit., Index, s.v. bhagavān and priyatāṃ, etc.
page 7 note 3 cf. op. cit., §131: hit(a)sukhāe; Epigraphia Indica, 2, 1894, p. 206, 28, BGoogle Scholar: sisinie Sāditāe; p. 210, 37, D 1: sthirae, etc.; cf. also Mathurā Inscriptions, §182 (p. 209, note 2): Naümikāyaṃ.
page 7 note 4 Mathurā Inscriptions §1.
page 8 note 1 cf. Stein's, M. A. translation of the Rājataraṅgṇī, Vol. 2, 1900 = 1961, p. 534 bGoogle Scholar.
page 8 note 2 According to the photograph of the inscription and confirmed by the two estampages before me, the mātṛkā of the first preserved akṣara is distinctly m, only the left lower corner of the letter is missing. The vocalization of this m-mātṛkā remains uncertain as directly above the two arms of the letter the stone is broken off.—Due to the inaccuracy of the engraver, the lower left part of the following nā is comparatively short. In this detail the n-mātṛkā resembles the na in line 1 of the record edited as §90 in the Mathurā Inscriptions (Goettingen, 1961)Google Scholar, or the nā in line 6 of op. cit. §115, or the na in line 2 of op. cit. §175, or the na in line 4 of op. cit. §182, etc.; cf. also the first naṃ in op. cit. §45.
page 8 note 3 The photograph of the inscription shows that the third akṣara of this word is ka, from the top of which an accidental flaw slants to the right, touching the upper part of the following pra.
page 8 note 4 As is confirmed by our photograph, the subscript ṭha is a little damaged but certain.
page 8 note 5 Judging from our two estampages, the first letter of this word can only be read as nā (written a little above the line exactly as the foregoing pi), the ā-sign being indicated by the line slanting to the right from the top of the letter and touching the following ma, which is as clear and certain as the following two akṣaras: an a (initial) and an i (initial).
page 8 note 6 Judging from our impressions, it seems to be certain that the dot above the ra is to be understood as an accidental flaw on the surface of the stone, otherwise one would have to read raṃ. According to the photograph of the stone with the inscription the following ji is completely clear and certain, whereas, unfortunately, in our two estampages the middle-bar of the j-mātṛkā is not very distinct.
page 8 note 7 The impressions as well as our photograph show that most of the last six akṣaras to some extent are slightly damaged, but they are distinct enough to assure the reading as given above.