a, which split up into four 'sâkhà, and four 'kula'. Inscription No. 4. which is dated in the year 9 of the king Kanishka or 87. A.D. (?) gives us a somewhat ancient form of the name of the gan
a Kot
iya and that of one of its branches exactly corresponding to the Vairi śàkhâ. Mutilated or wrongly written, the first word occurs also in inscriptions Nos. 2, 6 and 9 as koto-, ket
t
iya, and ka ..., the second in No. 6 as Vorâ. One of the families of this gan
a, the Vân
iya kula is mentioned in No. 6, and perhaps in No. 4. The name of a second, the Praśnavàhan
aka, seems to have appeared in No. 19. The last inscription mentions also another branch of the Kot
iya gan
a, the Majhimâ sâkhâ, which, according to the Kalpasûtra, was founded by Priyagantha the second disciple of Susthita. Two still older schools which, according to tradition, sprang from the fourth disciple of the eighth patriarch, along with some of their divisions appear in inscriptions Nos. 20 and 10. These are the Aryya-Udehikîya gan