Dear Indology list members,

This email requests your help to identify a place called Coyaṇḍaka.

This name appears in a verse of the “Nālandā Inscription of Vipulaśrīmitra,” an undated Sanskrit inscription, perhaps 12th century, commemorating the donation of a vihārikā at Nālandā by a Buddhist from Somapura Mahāvihāra.  Coyaṇḍaka is said to be the site of a pitāmahasya vihārikā where renovations have been donated. There is a possibility this place is outside India or only may be literary.  Of course the spelling of the name would have changed.  It is possible this place names occurs in Pali or other Prakrit sources.

See below for the verse which mentions Coyaṇḍaka and further information.

If you help me identify this place you will be rewarded by a grateful footnote in my first ever long article, on this inscription, in the upcoming publication by Harrossowitz of a book of essays on vihāra.  None of the editors or authors writing about this inscription have identified it.  I have been searching for 6 years for Coyaṇḍaka and even my esteemed professors have not found this place.

I have benefitted from many discussions and announcements on this list.

In gratitude,
Charlyn Edwards
(a doctoral student at Hamburg)


coyaṇḍake yaś ca pitāmahasya

vīhārikāyāṃ navakarmma citram

harṣābhidhāne ca pure jinasya

dīpaṅkarasya pratimāṃ vyadhatta. 


I have found two inscriptions with the word pitāmaha. 


The "Kosam Inscription of the Reign of Maharaja Vaisravana” commemorates the donation to a purvasiddhāyatana or a shrine dedicated to a siddha.  This inscription from the vicinity of Kauśāmbī is mixed Prakrit and Sanskrit and has been dated by Majumdar to the fourth century by palaeography alone. The donor is called a śrāvaka who gave a chhattram, stone parasol, for the top of the pūrvvasiddhāyatana or the temple of the bhagavato pitāmahasya saṃmyaksaṃbuddhasya.


Another inscription with the word pitāmaha is one of the few inscriptions firmly dated to the reign of the Kuṣana emperor Kaṇiṣka (second century).  It was found at Mathurā on a sculpted pedestal (the image missing) where the inscription included the phrase, bhagavato pitāmahasya saṃmyasaṃbuddhasya. The editor Sahni expressed his surprise at finding the word pitāmaha in the place of arhat in this Sanskrit version of the Pali homage, namo tassa bhagavato arhato sammāsambuddhassa, which is so frequently found at the beginning of Pali canonical texts.


An inscription published by Bhandarkar seems to indicate the practice, not necessarily Buddhist, of āyantana or shrines dedicated to deceased progenitors which often housed images of the deceased. This inscription for a gurvāyatana, also at Mathurā, commemorated the donation of images by a living guru (with the title arya) in honour of a lineage with four deceased gurus who are referred to as pūrrvā and bhagavat.  Bhandarkar argued that this early Gupta inscription is "practically identical with those of Kushāna records" and estimated a date of 380 CE.   Elsewhere, Mishra mentioned textual evidence, from Kauṇḍinya's commentary on the Pāśupatasūtras, that a place where a devotee to Śiva undertook vrata, "austerities," was described as an āyantana and considered sacred.


These renovations were citra which could mean colourfully painted or manifold but in any case wondrous.


_________________________________


Charlyn Edwards

Doktorandin, Asien-Afrika-Institut

Universität Hamburg

Email:  edwardscharlyn@gmail.com