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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. X.
The inscription records the grant of the village Mallayashţikā to a Brāhmaṇa, named Ravisvāmin, who belonged to the Gārgya-gotra and was a student of the Vajasaneyi-Sakhi. The grant was issued from Pudgalā, a locality, which I have not been able to identify, by the Mahārāja Nandana, who held the title of Kumīrāmātya, and who describes himself as "meditating over the feet of the king (dēra), and of his guru" (1.1). It is thus evident that the Mahäräja Nandana was merely a feudatory chief, and it appears not altogether anlikely, that one of the later Gupta kings may have been the paramount sovereign to whom he owed allegiance.
The date of the inscription (1. 8: Samvat 200 30 2) doubtless refers to the Gupta era, and correspopds accordingly to A.D.551-2. It is further specified as the 20th day of Mágha. It is interesting to find the solar calendar in popular use in Magadha, or Bihar, at such an early time; for it is well known that, at present, the agricultural year, governed by nalishatras, is solar in Bihar and in the United Provinces, while further to the east, in Bengal, a purely solar form of the calendar has come into general use for almost all practical purposes. I cannot remember having met with many lanar dates in old inscriptions from Bihar, and a careful and systematic compilation of all the available dates in ancient epigraphs from Bihar and Bengal may probably reveal to us the fact that the soli-lunar calendar of North-Western India was very little used in the north-east of India, and this again would afford a very striking analogy to the method of reckoning time, which still is made use of for agricultural parposes in Bihar, Dr. Grierson has lately called my attention to the remarkable fact, that among the peasants of modern Bihar, the nakshatras are not lunar mansions, as they used to be from the beginning, but that among them only the position of the sun in connection with the nakshatras is taken into account. This curious custom, may, thus, very likely, go back to ancient times, and the introduction of the solar llāhi year into North-Eastern India would, in tbat case, appear to have boen made easy on account of the existence there of a purely solar form of the Indian calendar.
The name of the engraver of the inscription appears to have been Śūdraka, if I am right in explaining the blundered words at the end of the inscription (1. S: Sudrakarēdrakshunah) as Sudrakēn=ātkirnań “engraved by Sūdraka." I may, perhaps, mention here, merely as a curiosity, that this name, famous to us as that of the author of the Msichchhakatika, occurs again in two other inscriptions from the Gaya District (Nos. 642 and 646 in Kielhorn's List"), one of which dates from the time of Nayapāla, and the other from the time of Yakshapāla, probably 9th or 10th century A.D.5
TEXT. 1 Svasti Pudgalāyaḥ? dēva-guru-pūdānudhyātas-kumāramatya-mabäräja-Nandanaḥ kusali 2 Mallayashţikāyām brāhmaṇ-ādin yathā-prativasino manayati viditam=vo bhavishyati
Personal proper names, formed with ravi, sürya, and similar words, appear to have been rather commou in North-Eastern India in those days. It is evident that the persons who aloptel them, were Sauras, or worshippers of the Sun, and it seems worth while pointing in this connection to the large number of ancient images of Surya, which have been found all over Bihar, and still may be seen along with Buddhist statues in almost every village in Bibar, close to which some ancient temple once existed.
2 This title is very frequently met with on my Basarh seals; se Archeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1903-04, p. 103. Its correct explanation in Sanskrit appears to be: TATTETTHT WTA: one who has been in the service of the king, from the time when he was a boy.'
According to the late Professor Pischel, Dandin was the real author of the Michchhakatika. This theory is based on the occurrence, both in the Mrichchhakatika, and in Dandin's Karyadarfa, of the verse: forata .swf avatars *:; and further on the fact, observed by Professor Piscbel, that all the verses, quoted as examples in the Kävyadaria, are from Dandin's own poetry. • Ep. Ind. Vol. V, Appendix, pp. 86-87.
in a footnote on No. 646, the late Professor Kielhorn has added that it belongs to "about the 12th century A. D."-Ed.) From the original plate.
[Mr. Dayal reads Pungalāyāḥ.-Ed.] - Originally pădunudhyalo; but the sign of o appears to have been struck out later on.
