Indian Antiquary Vol 03

SR No.: 032495
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 420
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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344
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
credulous and ignorant neighbours, who assemble on the occasion, as to whether they shall obtain the object of their wishes. Any replies the patient gives are often believed with the credit due to a prophecy. The influence of the preparation lasts generally twenty-four hours or thereabouts, at the end of which it subsides, and the patient will have to be kept upon good and cooling food of antibilious properties for weeks. But
THE VISALGADH INSCRIPTION. To the Editor of the "Indian Antiquary." SIR, Allow me to make a final remark on the Visâlgadh inscription, which Mr. Rehatsek has again brought up in the Antiquary (p. 265). Mr. Nairne, C. S., has since very kindly favoured me. with the very transcript which Mr. Rehatsek used, -the facsimile in Graham's Account of Kolhapur. The correct reading is
CORRESPONDENCE.
بهمت کار جهان جمله بود شما می شد بخواب این برج دولت اگر خواهی که تا راهش بداني کنون دارای گویش برج دولت
The business of the world is entirely (dependent) on
Madrasah College, Calcutta, 2nd September 1874.
energy:
This Burj i Daulat was completed in sleep.
If thou wishest to know its date,
Say now its date lies in the words Burji Daulat.
The second line is an allusion to some legend connected with the building of the fort. 'In sleep' means in one night. All big forts, here in Bengal too, are said to have been built by Devs or heroes in one night, during sleep, i.e. very quickly.
H. BLOCHMANN.
[DECEMBER, 1874.
it often happens with persons of bilious constitutions that the intoxication lasts for twice that period or more, in which case the juice of the root of brinjal is prescribed as an antidote against the evil effects of the datura. The females believe as an article of faith that this operation cures them of uterine and other pains which are detrimental to conception or development of the system.
ON INDIAN CHRONOLOGY.
To the Editor of the "Indian Antiquary." As Professor Bhandarkar, in his letter in the Ind. Ant. (p. 303) withdraws his accusation that I had overlooked the difficulty of filling up 272 or 330 years with the reigns of the first six Bhatâṛkas, while he admits that his language might bear that construction, there is an end of any personal question between us. I indeed would never have stated the case in a personal form at all, had there been any other mode of bringing it forward. The
one question that interested me, or interests the public, is to know whether the Balabhi kings did or did not date their grants from the Balabhi era, A.D. 318. As at the end of his paper Professor Bhandarkar admits to the fullest extent that they did so, we are perfectly agreed on this point; while as he never disputed that the Gupta kings dated their inscriptions from the same era, we are in accord on these two crucial points of Indian mediaval chronology. There may be still details to be rectified and minor difficulties to be removed before this is as clear to others as it has always been to me, and now is to Professor Bhandarkar; but if he will continue to use his opportunities with the same zeal and intelligence as he has hitherto shown I have no doubt that these will soon be cleared away.
Meanwhile I am delighted to see that in a paper he sent home to the late Oriental Congress, the Professor has done a good deal towards settling another disputed point in Indian chronology. His improved translations of the Nasik caveinscriptions, and the reasoning he deduces from them, make it tolerably clear that the Saka kings dated their coins and inscriptions from the Saka era A.D. 78, and not from the Vikramaditya Samvat 57 B.C., as I was inclined to believe might be the case. This being so, it now only remains to find out when the Vikramaditya era was first established-not certainly, as far as we can now see, before the age of Bhoja-and what event took place 57 years before Christ which could have given rise to that date being fixed upon for so important a commemoration. These, however, are idle questions in comparison with the great epochal dates alluded to above, whose determination seems to me essential for a right comprehension of the mediaeval history of India, and still. more so for the architectural sequence of its buildings, which, with these corrections, now seems clear and intelligible.
JAS. FERGUSSON.
London, 6th Nov. 1874.