Cintamani Sarnika Of Dasabala

Author(s): Dharmanand Kosambi
Publisher: D D Kosambi

Page 1

INTRODUCTION
The most interesting stanza of the empirical calendar printed herewith (for the first time) is 15 of the final section, which reads without emendation:
श्रीभोजे चतुरणवां कलयति प्रौढे तदोष्णा भुवं
falaetà già ta:(5:) 44aaghiraai : 1 . गोलग्रंथविदां वरो दशबल: संस्मृत्य सौधोदनिं
बोधव्यामणुबुद्धिभिर्विहितवांस्तथ्यां तेथेः सारणं(णीम् ) ॥ १५॥
The custom of Indian astronomical writers of working from the current year dates our author, for he bases his calculations on saka 977 (1. 15, 4.1, 6. 1) as the initial point. This began on March 1-2, 1055 A.D. according to L.D. Swamikannu Pillai's Indian Ephemeris (vol. iii, Madras 1922). Thereby, we obtain two interesting byproducts.
The first is that Bhoja still ruled from ocean to ocean in 1055. The locative absolute and the present tense leave little doubt. This identifies the king as Bhoja Paramāra of Dhārā, the great Bhoja who left so deep an impression upon classical Sanskrit literature in its last great phase. The Paramāra copper-plate grants are dated in samvat years which began in kārttika, not caitra like the saka years. For, Bhoja speaks (Indian Antiquary, vi, 1877, pp. 54-55) of making a land-grant in caitra of såmvat 1078 after having conceived the idea in māgha of the same year. The first known grant of Bhoja's successor Jayasimha Paramāra is dated at Dhārā, as on āşādha vadi 13, of samvat 1112, which is June 24-25, 1056 AD.
The final years of Bhoja's reign are supposed to have been disturbed by an invasion led by the kings Karna Kalacuri and Bhima Solanki, who took Dhārā just after Bhoja's death.1
1. D. C. Ganguly, History of the Paramāra Dynasty (Dacca, 1933), chap. iv, pp. 88-122, especially 118. Also, H. C. Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India (Calcutta 1936), vol. ii. The records are unusually full at the period, but hard to date through the flights of poetic fancy. Merutunga's fables and the Kalacuri