Read this short inscription and answer the questions that follow:
In the year 33 of the maharaja Huvishka (a Kushana ruler), in the first month of the hot season on the eighth day, a Bodhisatta was set up at Madhuvanaka by the bhikkhuni Dhanavati, the sister’s daughter of the bhikkhuni Buddhamita, who knows the Tipitaka, the female pupil of the bhikkhu Bala, who knows the Tipitaka, together with her father and mother.
A. How did Dhanavati date her inscription?
B. Why do you think she installed an image of the Bodhisatta?
C. Who were the relatives she mentioned?
D. What Buddhist text did she know?
E From whom did she learn this text?
A. Dhanavati dated her inscription that she placed the inscription at Madhuvanaka in the first month of the hot season (i.e. summer) on the eighth day and in the year 33 of the maharaja (i.e. the emperor) named Huvishks.
B. I think that she (the bhikkhuni Dhanavati) installed an image of the Bodhisatta to show that Mahayana sect of Buddhism was becoming popular day by day and Bodhisattas were considered great personality in Buddhism during the reign of the Kushana rulers.
C. She had mentioned her own mother’s sister named Buddhamita. The lady was a bhikkhuni. She had also mentioned bhikkhuni Bala and her parents.
D. She knew the Tipitaka, the Buddhist text.
E. She learnt this text from bhikkhuni Buddhmita who was the female pupil of the bhikkhu Bala.
