# The Dharmasetu: A Bridge between Nepal, Bengal, Orissa, Cambodia, South India and Java?

BY AMANDINE WATTELIER-BRICOUT · PUBLISHED 19/01/2024 · UPDATED 23/01/2024

On 8th and 9th of January 2024, the workshop “At the ‘Margins’ of the Indic World: Connections, Innovations and Archaisms from Nepal to Bali” organized by Andrea Acri and Nina Mirning took place in Paris.
## At the 'Margins' of the Indic World:
Connections, Innovations, and Archaisms from Nepal to Bali

This workshop is devoted to the theme of so-called 'centres and peripheries' of the Sanskrit Cosmopolis or Indic World. More specifically, papers will engage in comparative approaches of aspects of the textual (both manuscript and epigraphic), artistic, and religious cultures of Nepal (and the wider Himalayan region/the Tibetan plateau) and Southeast Asia (in particular Java and Bali). Topics include connectivity between the Himalayan region and Southeast Asia and/or China; the comparative study of epigraphy and manuscript cultures from Nepal and maritime Southeast Asia; and the Tantric religious paradigms of the Hindu and Buddhist practitioners from the Kathmandu Valley and Bali.

**Conveners:**
Andrea Acri (EPHE/EFEO, PSL University, Paris)
Nina Mirnig (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna)

**Contact:**
andrea.acri@ephe.psl.eu
nina.mirnig@oeaw.ac.at

**This event is funded/supported by**

ANR—French National Research Agency (project MANTRA, ANR-22-CE27-0015)
Austrian Sciences Fund (FWF V-755)
École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL University
GREI—Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EA2120)

anr®
agence nationale
de la recherche

FWF
Der Wissenschaftsfonds.

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École Pratique
des Hautes Études

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GROUPE DE RECHERCHES
EN ÉTUDES INDIENNES

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## WORKSHOP

### At the 'Margins' of the Indic World:
Connections, Innovations, and
Archaisms from Nepal to Bali

Monday 8th January 2024: 14:00–17:30 CET
Tuesday 9th January 2024: 9:00–12:00 CET
Paris

This event gave me the opportunity to present some preliminary results of my research project BESTOW (Benedictive and Exhortative Stanzas, a Thread of Officially uttered Words). My talk entitled “Dharmasetuḥ, a Bridge between Nepal, Bengal, Orissa, Cambodia, South India and Java: Exploring the Use of a Sanskrit Stanza in Epigraphical Records” focused on a well-known stanza numbered 117 in the list of final stanzas established by Sircar (1965), which reads as follows:

sāmānyo 'yam dharma-setur nṛpāṇām kāle kāle pālanīyo
bhavadbhiḥ |

sarvān etān bhāvinaḥ pārthivendrān bhūyo bhūyo yācate
rāmacandraḥ||

Rāmacandra¹ begs repeatedly to all these future kings: “this bridge of Dharma which is common to all the kings, you always must protect it!”

This stanza is also inscribed with slight variations on a Javanese stone inscription dated 700 śaka (778-779 CE) issued by the Śailendra dynasty, the Kalasan inscription. ² In his edition, Long (2014, 76) asserts on the basis of seven epigraphical sources and
of one verse of the *Skandapurāṇa* that there are testimonies of this stanza from ancient India, Campā and Nepal. This statement was a perfect starting point to explore the 'margins' of the Indic world, so as to track connections, innovations, and archaisms from Nepal to Java.

If this stanza is indeed present from these two 'peripheral' regions,
many questions arise: what is the native region of this stanza?
Does its use reflect an archaism or, on the contrary, an innovation?
Does it confirm a connection between Nepal, Bengal and Java, as
the similarity of the writing on the Kalasan inscription with those
issued by the Pāla dynasty or Nepalese manuscripts would seem to
indicate? Does the geographical distribution of this stanza shed any
new light on the native region of the Śailendra dynasty?

First I questioned the occurrence of this stanza in Nepal since, even if it is found in the edition of the extensive *Skandapurāṇa*, I was unable to find it in the edition of the 'original' *Skandapurāṇa* (Bhaṭṭarāī 1988).³ Although I cannot confirm the presence of this particular stanza in Nepal, my initial forays into the Nepalese epigraphic corpus have enabled me to discover that some donations end with imprecatory stanzas found in Sircar's list.

Then, to provide an accurate picture of the dissemination of the
stanza 117, I have gathered its occurrences from the
bibliographical references given by Sircar (1965) and from the
DHARMA Database. For now, I have found this stanza in 78
epigraphical records. For each testimony, I have collected the
approximate date and place of issue, the identity of the issuer, the
obedience of the donation, and the reading of the stanza. From this
collection, it can be stated that this stanza is not only found in the
records of the Pāla and Śailendra dynasties, but also in records of
many other dynasties, such as the Rāṣtrakūṭa, Eastern Cālukya,
Somavamśin or Bhañja. Its presence is attested from 778 to 1218
and its geographical distribution includes the following areas:
Andhra Pradesh, Bangladesh, Bihar, Cambodia, Gujarat, Java,
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

This collection of epigraphical attestations of this stanza shows three particularly striking facts.

First, whereas the use of this stanza is well-attested in India, its earliest testimony is outside of India, in a Javanese inscription whose content does not refer to the epic hero Rāma/Rāmabhadra.⁴ The three earliest Indian testimonies available today appear about thirty years after and originate from Gujarat, West Bengal and Maharashtra.⁵ In all three, Rāma is the speaker.

Second, stanzas whose meaning is close to the stanza 117 are found in another Javanese inscription⁶ and in seven Cambodian inscriptions.⁷ In these testimonies from 'peripheral' aeras, the speaker is the issuer king and Rāma is not mentioned.

Third, three of the Pāla inscriptions share a common wording with the Kalasan inscription, not found in any of the other testimonies.⁸ But all these inscriptions date from the twelfth century.

Thus, I observe that the peripheral testimonies of the stanza 117 seem to be freer in their wording and do not refer to the epic. As these testimonies are among the earliest, they could represent an innovative discourse or an adaptation of a stanza to their own context. Whereas it is possible to assert a connection between the Pāla dynasty and Java based, on the similarity of the script and common wording, one wonder about the origin and the direction of this connection. The location of the earliest Indian testimonies gives no clear indication about the origin of the Śailendra dynasty.

The slideshow of my presentation is available [here](#).

## Bibliography

Bergaigne, Abel. 1893. *Inscriptions sanscrites de Campā et du Cambodge*. Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale 27, 1re partie, [2e fascicule]. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. https://archive.org/details/inscriptionssan00berggoog.
Bhandarkar, Ramakrishna Gopal. 1887. « A Sanskrit Inscription from Central Java ».

*Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society* 17 (2): 1-10.

Bhaṭṭarāī, Kṛṣṇaprasāda. 1988. *Skandapurāṇasya Ambikākhaṇḍah.*

Mahendraratnagranthamālā 2. Kathmandu: Mahendrasaṃskṛtaviśvavidyālaya.

Bosch, F. D. K. 1928. « De inscriptie van Kěloerak ». *Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde* 68: 1-64.

Brandes, Jan Laurens Andries. 1886. « Een Nâgarî-opschrift gevonden tusschen Kalasan en Prambanan ». *Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde* 31: 240-60.

Furui, Ryosuke. 2011. « Indian Museum Copper Plate Inscription of Dharmapala, Year 26: Tentative Reading and Study ». *South Asian Studies* 27 (2): 145-56.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2011.614416.

———. 2015. « Rajibpur Copper Plate Inscriptions of Gopāla IV and Madanapāla ». *Pratna Samiksha: A Journal of Archaeology* New Series 6: 39-61.

https://www.academia.edu/18488352/.

Long, Mark. 2014. *Voices from the Mountain: The Śailendra Inscriptions Discovered in Central Java and the Malay Peninsula*. Śata-Piṭaka Series 648. New Delhi / Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan.

Mirashi, Vasudev Vishnu. (1940) 1935. « Two Copper-Plate Inscriptions from Berar: A. — Sīsavai Grant of Govinda III; Śaka Year 729 ». *Epigraphia Indica* 23: 204-12.

Salomon, Richard. 1998. *Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages*. South Asia Research. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sarkar, Himansu Bhusan. 1971. *Corpus of the Inscriptions of Java (Corpus Inscriptionum Javanicarum), up to 928 A. D.* Vol. 1. 2 vol. Calcutta: K.L. Mukhopadhyay.

Sircar, Dines Chandra. 1965. « Stanzas on Bhūmi-Dāna Quoted in Raja-Śāsanas, Appendix II ». In *Indian Epigraphy*, 170-201. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1. The alternative reading rāmabhadraḥ for rāmacandraḥ is very common. [ ↗ ]

2. One can read the following text in the lines 11-12:

sarvān evāgāminaḥ pārthivendrān
bhūyo bhūyo yācate rāja-siṅhaḥ |
sāmānyo yan dharmma-setur narāṇāṁ
kāle kāle pālanīyo bhavadbhiḥ ||

The Lion among Kings again begs all future kings among kings, without exception, that this universal Dharma-causeway for humans, is to be maintained by you in every age! (trans. A. Griffiths)

For the editions of this inscription, see Brandes (1886), Bhandarkar (1887), Bosch (1928), Sarkar (1971), Sircar (1983) and Long (2014). [ ↗ ]

3. As the critical edition of the 'original' *Skandapurāṇa* is still under progress (six volumes are already available), it was necessary to check in Bhaṭṭarāi's *editio princeps*. [ ↗ ]

4. The earliest testimony is the Kalasan stone inscription dated 700 śaka (778-779 CE). Surprisingly, the name Rāmabhadra is not recorded in the critical edition of Vālmīki's *Rāmāyaṇa* (Baroda, 1960-75) available on the *GRETIL*, not even in *Southern recension*. [ ↗ ]

5. Sīsavai Grant of Govinda III (807 CE, see Mirashi 1935), Indian Museum Plate of Dharmapāla, year 26 (Dharmapāla ruled between 770s-810s CE, see Bergaigne 1893) and Baroda copper plate Inscription of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Karkkarāja II (812 CE, see Salomon 1998, 284-86). [ ↗ ]

6. The Śrī Saṅgrāmadhanamjaya inscription from the former desa Kēluran 704 śaka (782-784 CE, see Long 2014, 85-101). [ ↗ ]

7. K. 324, K.327, K.331, South and North doorjambs of East door of the Northern tower of the first row of Prasat Lolei, 815 Śaka and K.280, K.281,
K.282, K.283 Thnal Baray, southeast, northeast, northwest, southwest corners, 9th century, see Bergaigne 1893. [→]

8. These three inscriptions are Rajibpur Plate of Gopāla IV, year 2 and Madanapāla (see Furui 2015), Rajibpur Plate of Madanapāla, year 22 (see Furui 2015), Manahali Plate of Madanapāla, year 8 (see Vasu 1900). [→]

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