DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

8.6] ARTISAN DONORS 271
The boast is justified, considering the time, by the beautiful five-storied
reliefs left Lt both sides of the entrance by Bhutapala’s charity. Vejayanti
has been identified with the distant BanavasI in North Kanara, a creekport.
Of quite another class is the perfume-vendor (gamdhika)
Simhadata from Dhenukakata who donated the right-hand arched
doorway. From Dhenukakata also came the carpenter (vadhaki) Samina
who signed the pillar in front of the central doorway. This cannot
have been solely because of vanished woodwork, though woodwork
there was (at Bhaja, the whole fagade was wooden). The inside of the
Caitya still preserves wooden ceiling arches (with traces of the original
painting) that help the cave imitate a mantapa construction, and of
which the original portions (for they have been recently patched with
modern woodwork to keep them in situ) should facilitate Carbon-14
dating. Studying dther caves, as at Nasik, Kuda, Kanheri we find gifts
(of parts of the caves) signed by numerous merchants, physicians,
officials. A class donors who have left parallel signatures would appear
far too humble to accumulate any wealth at all in the later village
economy where they would normally have nothing more than a trifling
share of the grain and a patch or two of land to till in their spare time
: blacksmiths, flower vendors (malakara), braziers (kasakara),
ploughmen (halakiya), householders (gahapati, kutumbika). Royal support
was comparatively slight. The most notable was from the Saka Usavadata
at Nasik and Karle. The latter gift was confirmed by a Maharathi
(presumably the queen’s brother and a high official) under royal orders
in the seventh year of the Satavahana Vastthiputa Pulumayi.
The contrast with patrons in Kusana territory is striking. There
we find a greater proportion of kings or nobles whose statues occur
so frequently at Mathura, signing the gifts. Money-makers, (including
a prostitute, her daughter, and associates but) generally merchants, also
patronized the Jain foundations at Mathura. There is a greater variety
at Sanci, but even then the workers are relatively few (Marshall-Foucher
: Sanchi 199 (= Luders 181), 448, 454, 499, 589). Among the 407
Sanci inscriptions listed by Luders (EL 10, app. nos. 162-568), less than