Early History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan Conquest c11.11

c11.11

In the second inscription Ushavadâta is spoken of as having, in the year 42, dedicated the cave monastery for the use of the Buddhist mendicant priests coming to it from the four quarters He deposited with a guild of weavers residing in Govardhana a sum of two thousand Kârshâpaṇas at an annual interest of one hundred Kârshâpaṇas Out of this interest he directed that a garment should annually be given to each of the twenty priests residing during the rains in his cave monastery With another guild he deposited one thousand Kârshâpaṇas, the interest on which was seventy-five Kârshâpaṇas Out of this other things (Kusana) were to be provided for the priests The carrying out of these directions was secured by their being declared in the corporation of the town of Govardhana and inscribed on the door of the monastery In the years 41 and 40 he gave away a large sum of money⁵ for gods and Brâhmaṇs The third inscription, which is a short one, mentions that the apartment on which it is engraved was the religious benefaction of Ushavadâta's wife Dakhamitrâ ⁶ The fourth is greatly mutilated but sufficient remains to show that that also records similar gifts of Ushavadâta's ⁷ In the cave-temple of Kârlı there is an inscription [17] in which Ushavadâta is represented to have granted the village of Karajıka for the support of the mendicant priests in the cave monastery of Valûraka, as the hill or the country about it seems to have been called at the time ⁸ There also is given an account of his charities similar to that in the first of his Nâsık inscriptions In an inscription at Junnar, Ayama, the minister of the lord Nahapâna the great Kshatrapa, is mentioned as having caused a tank to be dug and a hall to be constructed ⁹ The minister appears to have been a Brâhmaṇ, since he is spoken of as belonging to the Vatsa Gotra