Studies in Indian Art c12.s5.14

c12.s5.14

The order of words in the sentence is somewhat faulty. Ruvaka is connected with dānam and must be the name of the donor. The phrase Devaputro Māgho is not intelligible except as proper name to be connected with padra-mahasthakena, but I confess inability to identify this Devaputra Māgho. I wonder if the reading could be amended as deva pratimāyāḥ but for this I see little warrant. The words Buddhasa Kasapasa constitute the soul of the record and happily do not present any difficulty. The last word padra-mahasthakena is in the instrumental case and must rofer to the donor who it appears was an officer placed in charge of a village. The word padra, according to Dr. Sten Konow, occurs in the Shakardarra Well Inscription and consequently in its copy, viz., the Rawal Kharashthi Inscription from Mathura. [Sten Konow, Corpus of Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions, p. 160]. It is also found in the inscriptions of the Gupta period in such terms as Śivaka-padrake (cf. Fleet, Corpus III, Ins38, line 22, p. 170, note 3). Its dictionary meaning is ‘village’ and that suits the sense in the present context. Mahasthaka seems to be a title and is met with for the first time. Curiously enough, in line 20 of the very inscription quoted above from Fleet, the word mahattara has been used. Fleet takes it as a class of officers, and accepts Monier Williams’ meaning of it as ‘the head or oldest man of a village.’ (Ibid., p. 169, Note 7). I think the title mahasthaka is an earlier form of mahattara, and padra mahasthaka would therefore be a real village official in the system of Kushāṇa polity, corresponding to the grāmaṇī of the still earlier epochs.