ABSTRACT
The majority of inscriptions found in Buddhist monastic context records donations of buildings, art objects and monastic utensils. This rather straightforward relation between donor and recipient is contrasted by more complex donations, that mention perpetuate endowments (akṣayanīvī) of money or agricultural land in order to finance ritual activities in the framework of a particular institution. Texts of this kind are attested all over India from different periods and in different religious contexts. They bear witness of a practice that allows religious institutions to develop into sustainable ritual centres with a strong economic relationship to their respective hinterlands.
In my chapter, I investigate many akṣayanīvī and related texts that belong to the inscriptions of the Ikṣvākus of Vijayapurī (3rd−4th centuries CE). By comparing this evidence to both earlier and later akṣayanīvī texts, I argue that the institution of perpetual endowments was initially introduced to guarantee the maintenance of donated buildings. As such, it is closely related to the donations of money and real estate to Brahmins as dakṣiṇā (e.g., Naneghat). As these Brahmanical donations, akṣayanīvīs were made both in the form of money and land or village grants. The functional parallelism of both groups is further confirmed by the use of a common terminology that designates the perpetuity of the gift (śāśvatkāla-, ācandrārka-).
Thus, these texts not only illustrate the economic conditions of religious institutions in Central India in the first centuries of the Common Era, but they also allow a certain insight into the development of rituals in the context of institutionalised religious movements and their administrative and economic backgrounds.
