The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.122

v2.c16.122

The second clause is intended to terminate, like the first with a participle, but it is not given. Its first word is *tato*, ‘afterward’. The next is, *lekha-rūpagaṇanā-vavapāra-vidhi-visāradena*, ‘by him who is experienced’, (*visārada*) ‘in writing’ (*lekhā*) ‘painting’ (*rūpa*), ‘arithmetic’ (*gaṇanā*), ‘civil polity’ (*vavapāra*), and ‘law’ (*vidhi*). Prinsep renders the word *rūpa* into “reading”, but I see no reason to adopt it, as it cannot be supported by any law of Sanskrit or Pali construction. It being very doubtful whether two and twenty centuries ago painting would form a part of ordinary education, it would perhaps be well to accept *rūpa* to be a qualifying term for *lekha*, the two together meaning ‘forms of writing’. Prinsep takes *gaṇa* to be equivalent to ‘arithmetic’, but *gaṇa* is to count, and to make a noun of it an affix of some kind is wanted, and I effect this by joining the initial of the next word and reading the whole *gaṇanā*. The *nā* being thus removed we have *vavapāra* left, instead of *nāva* and *vapāra* as in Prinsep’s reading. The word *nāva*, ‘boat’, can scarcely be used by itself to indicate navigation, but coupled with the next word *vapāra* for Sanskrit *vyāpāra*, ‘affairs relating to’, it would make an appropriate term. Navigation, however, as a subject of juvenile study was probably never preferred to civil polity, and I have therefore preferred the latter meaning. Prinsep renders *vapāra* into ‘commerce’. The word *vidhi* as it stands may mean law in general, or especially the laws relating to the subjects named. I follow Prinsep in taking the word in a general sense. The third epithet is *savavijāvadataṇa*, ‘by him who is proficient in all knowledge’. The letters are all clear, and the radicals do not suggest any alterative meaning. This is followed by the word *navavasāni*, ‘nine years’, which represent the period devoted to the acquirement of the different accomplishments mentioned, and to complete the sense a word is required here, which I believe was *ativāhitāni*, 'were passed'.