Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s3.t2.5

c8.s3.t2.5

Moving on to the period of the Great Kuṣāṇas (i.e., Kaniṣka and his successors, provisionally assumed here for purposes of discussion to have begun ruling in A.D. 78; cf. 5.5.1.4), we now find more Mathurā inscriptions in reasonably standard Sanskrit, including for the first time some of Buddhistic content. For instance, several of the pillar base donations from the Jamālpur mound (e.g., MI §47–9 and 53) are in standard Sanskrit or very close to it; for instance, §48, *aya[ṃ kum]bh[ako dā]naṃ saṅghaprakṛtān[ā]ṃ Bh[ad]raghoṣa-pramukhā(nāṃ)*. A longer inscription is the Īsāpur *yūpa* (MI §94) of the year 24 (= ca. A.D. 102?) of Vāsiṣka, commemorating the performance of a *dvādaśarātra* sacrifice in proper Sanskrit but for some minor orthographic variations (gṛṣma- for grīṣma- [l. 3]; hiatus in -cchandogena iṣṭvā [l. 6]). A few decades younger is a pedestal inscription from Tokri Ṭīlā (MI §99) recording donations, apparently Brahmanical, during the reign of Huviṣka (the date is lost) in more or less correct Sanskrit but with some peculiarities such as the apparent gerund *dṛśya* (l. 3) and the unclear word *nanayat* (l. 1).