________________
No. 49.]
KADABA PLATES OF PRABHUTAVARSHA.
835
the office of the Rashtrakta king directly, but that, the sanotion of the sovereign having been obtained, it was drawn up by somebody in the service of the governor of the Kanungil district or of the vioeroy of the Ganga province in whose territory the granted village was situated.
Finally we have to examine the date. It runs (line 83): Sakansipa-samvatsaréshu darafikhi-munishu vyatitéshu J[y*]eshthamása-éuklapaksha-dasamyan Pushyanakshatra Chandraváre. The year being taken as carrent," the date would correspond, as pointed oat by Professor Kielhorn, to Monday, the 24th May A.D. 812, and this would be a perfectly possible date for Govinda III. Prabhâtavarsha, as we know from the stone inscription at Sirur that his successor Sarva or Amoghavarsha I. came to the throne in A.D. 814 or 815. But the date offers two difficulties which cannot be overlooked. Firstly, the nakshatra is wrong. On the 24th May A.D. 812 the moon was, as shown by Professor Kielhorn, in Hasta (No. 13) and Chitra (No. 14), not in Pushya (No. 8). This, however, may perhaps be considered as being of little importance, as such and even graver mistakes will be found in doubtlessly genuine records. Of much greater consequence is the second point, the expressing of the Saka year by numerical words. The earliest epigraphio instance of this in India proper is the stone inscription of Chandamah&sena at Dholpar, dated in Vikrama-Samvat 898,and the earliest instanoe in Mysore is a stone inscription at Sravana-Belgola, which gives Saka 904 as the year of the death of the Rashtrakata Indra IV., and probably was engraved not much after that time. The present inscription would therefore furnish the earliest example of the use of numerical words not only in this part of the country, but in India altogether. Of course, even this does not prove with absolute certainty that the inscription is a forgery. It may be alleged that it precedes the Dholpur inscription only by thirty years, and that in Cambodia and Java numerical words appear already in
That current years are called "expired" is not unusual; compare Professor Kielhorn's list, Ind, 4st. Vol. XXIII. p. 127.-[Without wishing to decide what, indeed, at present lounnot do-whether the inscription is a forgery or ant, I would, with Dr. Lüders' permission, offer the following additional remarks on the date:1. The phrase Sakansipa-aamateareks ... eyatitlabu is foreign to the inscriptions of the Rasbţrakatas, in wbich the regular phrase is Sakaaripa-di-dita-sanatoare On the other hand, we have the similar phrases Salaasip. dbd&shu .. . oyatidas in the British Museum forged copper-plate inscription of the Western Chalukya Pulikasin I. of Saka-Samvat 411 (to be taken, like the year of the Kadabs plates, MA current year); Sakansipali. ra topatsara.. ..atllabs in the Faidarabad plates of the Western Chalakya Paliklia II. of Saka-Sararat 684 ; and Sakanripa-samvatsar&shu .. . galdeku in the Nilgaad inscription of the Western Chalukya TuleII. of Baku-Sathyat 904. Considering that those dates belong to Chalakys inscriptione, attention may be drawn to the fact that the family of the VimalAdity of the proces inscription claimed to belong to the ChAlukyas.-. Genuine dates with current years, before Saks-Samyat 1000, are indeed very rare; bat, supposing the date to be a forgery, one would expect the forger to have been anxious to gir
anxious to give it some appearance of probability, while, in quoting the nakalatra Pashga with Jyêshtha-sudi 10, be would have decidedly failed to do so. The nakshatra on Jy@btha-sudi 10 usually is Hasta, in whatever year, and this the writer of the date may reasonably be msumed to have known. Of 18 ordinary Hinda calendars for different yours, which I have examined, no less than 10 give Hasta for Jydshtha-sodi 10.-3. It may also be argued that the ciroumstance of the inscription being
kedvys of some sort, sufficiently accounts for the fact that the year of the date is expressed by namerical worde, with the we of which the people of Indis proper undoubtedly were well aoqaninted in A.D. 813. The dates from Cambodia, in which numerical words are used as early as Saka-a vat 626 and 646, are in verle, and so is the date of Saks-Samyat 664 from Java. The same is the case with all the Indian Baka date of the published inscriptions that give namerical words, down to at least Saka-Samvat 1001 (ol 8.887, 904, 94, 991, 999, and 1001), and with all the Vikrama dates down to at least Vikrama-Samrat 1840 (of V. 898, 971, 1008, 1010, and 1940).-F. Kielhorn.)
Ind. Auf. Vol. XXIV. p. 9.
ibid. Vol. XII. p. 219. The inscription is dated in Saka 788 expired, Vyays, while the fifty-second year of the reign of Amoghavaroba-Nripatunga was current.
Zeitaohritt der Deutschen Morgon. Vol. XL. p. 88. The stone inscription of Dhavala of Hastikundi at Bijapur (Journ. Beng. 41. Soo. Vol. LXII. Part I. p. 814) contains the date Vikrama-Sarorat 978 in numerical woede, but the inscription itself belongs to Vikrama-Samovat 1053. Those and the following dates were kindly pointed out to me by Professor Kielhorn
L. Bice, Tuscription at Sranapa-Belgola, No. 67, p. 66.
