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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
scheme of the lunar months. The complete agreement of all the twelve dates proves that the date given in the last line of this inscription,-samvat 793 Phalguna-vadi 9 Some, -is correct; but it also shows that the statement in line 40, according to which Karṇadeva performed the funeral rites in honour of his father on Saturday, the second lunar day of the dark half of Phalguna, is incorrect. For the second tithi of the same lunar fortnight in which the inscription is dated commenced on Sunday, the 10th January A.D. 1042, 4 h. 15 m. after mean sunrise, and ended 5 h. 49 m. after mean sunrise of Monday, the 11th January, and cannot therefore in any way be connected with a Saturday." I suspect that the day on which the funeral ceremonies were really performed was Saturday, the 12th December A.D. 1041, when the second tithi of the dark half of the púrnimánta Mâgha ended about 11 hours after mean sunrise, and that the writer of the grant, who cannot be absolved of carelessness in other respects, wrongly put down in line 40 the month in which he was writing the grant. However this may be, there can be no doubt that Monday, the 18th January A.D. 1042, is really the date of this inscription, and that this is as trustworthy a date for the reign of the king Karnadeva as we could wish to have.
Having thus disposed of the formal part of the grant, I have still to give an account of the thirty-one verses with which the inscription opens. As is the case with most copper-plate inscriptions, these introductory verses contain little more than the genealogy of the grantor, but they furnish some names which have not become known yet from other inscriptions of the same dynasty.
After the words om om, adoration to Siva,' the inscription opens with a verse in honour of the god Śiva, who is identified here with the supreme Brahma.18 It then records, in verses 2-4, the origin of the powerful prince Kartavirya, the vanquisher of the demon Râvana; 19 and further relates, in verses 5 and 6, that, sprung from Kårtavirya's family, there were the famous Haihaya princes, the clan of whom was rendered illustrious by the valorous and pious prince Kokkalla.20
According to verse 7, the hand of this prince Kokkalla granted freedom from fear to Bhoja, Vallabharaja, the illustrious Harsha who is described as the sovereign of Chitrakuta, and to the king Samkaragana. It does not seem difficult to identify these four contemporaries of Kokkalla. From verse 17 of the Bilhari inscription we know that Kokkalla, having conquered the whole earth, 'set up two unprecedented columns of his fame,'-in the south the well-known Krishnaraja, and in the north Bhojadeva; and, in commenting on that passage," I have already adopted Sir A. Cunningham's suggestion that the former of these sovereigns can only have been the Rashtrakuta Krishna II., who married a daughter of Kokkalla, the king of Chedi, and who reigned from about A.D. 875 to about A.D. 911, and the latter Bhojadeva of Kanauj, for whom we have the dates A.D. 862, 876, and 882. Now Krishna II. also bore the name Krishna- vallabha," and it is therefore clear that the Bhoja and
17 On Saturday, the 9th January 1142, the full moon tithi ended 34. 7m. after mean sunrise.
18 The same verse occurs at the commencement of the Bewah copper-plate grant of the Maháránaka Salakhanavarma. deva: Indian Antiquary, vol. XVII, page 228. Compare also the first verse of the Tewar inscription of Jayasimhadeva, above, page 19.
19 See verse 9 of the Bilhari inscription, ante, vol. I, page 263.
30 This name is spelt both Kokkalla and Kokalla.
11 See ante, vol. I, page 253.
See Fleet, Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, page 36. Since the above was written, Prof. Bhandarkar has published an inscription in which Krishnaraja's father Amoghavarsha is named Bri-vallabha; and it is just possible that he may be the Vallabharaja of this copper-plate inscription.
