‘Gift’ in Gāndhārī epigraphical sources. A comparative analysis of G. dana-, danamuha-, and deyadhaṃma-.

This article examines the lexicon for “gift” in the Gaˉndhaˉrıˉ epigraphical corpus, focusing on threekey word-forms: G. dana-, danamuha- and deyadhaṃma-. These terms, which denote the meaning of “gift”, appear 36, 111 and 14 times respectively (both as single words and as compound constituents) in Gaˉndhaˉrıˉ inscriptions currently recorded in the CKI. Despite their frequent appearance, existing scholarship has primarily restricted itself to identifying their synonymous functions or analysing their grammatical construction in the case of the two compounds. No comprehensive study has yet catalogued all occurrences of these word-forms, traced their semantic development or examined the reasons behind their changing usage over time. This article addresses this gap by providing a complete inventory of the occurrences of these word-forms in the Gaˉndhaˉrıˉepigraphical corpus and examining their use in non-Gaˉndhaˉrıˉsources. It also presents a semantic analysis, exploring their synchronic and diachronic relationships within Gaˉndhaˉrıˉinscriptions.