Epigraphia Indica Vol 08

Author(s): E Hultzsch
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 68

No. 7.]
CHIKMAGALUR INSCRIPTION OF RACHAMALLA III.
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It seems reasonable, in these circumstances, to identify the Nitimårga-Rachamalla of this Chikmagalar inscription with the Nitimarga, personal name not disclosed, for whom the Elkůru inscription supplies the date of A.D. 299-1000, precisely in the period to which we are independently brought for the Chikmagalûr record. And, if we assume that the rule of this Nitimårga only began in A.D. 1000, then the Chikmagalur record, dated in the month Kârttika of the sixth regnal year, cannot be placed later than A.D. 1005. While, on the other side, with A.D. 984-985 as the final date of Satyavákya-Rachamalla II., it cannot be placed before A.D. 989.
Thus, the extreme limits for this Chikmagalûr inscription are A.D. 989 and 1005. And it gives us @ new Western Gangs name, that of Rachamalla III., with the appellation Nitimârga, whose sixth regnal year was current at some time during that interval.
A precise result cannot be arrived at just now, simply because the details of the date of the record are erroneous in one respect or another. They couple the Mala nakshatra with the full-moon tithi of the month Kârttika; whereas, though the moon is often according to the unequal-space systems of the nakshatras, but rarely if ever according to the equal-space or ordinary system, in Mala in the course of the new-moon tithi of Karttika, she cannot ever be anywhere near Mala on the full-moon tithi of that month. And, until we obtain some further guide, we cannot decide whether we should discard the nakshatra and accept the full-moon, or whether we should regard the mention of the full-moon as a mistake and should take the new-moon and the Mula nakshatra.
The following results, however, which tend to reduce the above-mentioned period to A.D. 991 to 1004, may be stated, to be utilised and examined more closely hereafter when we obtain some further guids, in the shape either of a Saka date distinctly coupled with the name of Rachamalla III., or of another regnal date which will be free from ambiguity :
(1) On the supposition that we must discard the nakshatra and calculate for the full-moon. With the tables in Sewell and Dikshit's Indian Calendar, I have the following results :(a) During the above-mentioned period, the full-moon was first connected with a Monday
in A.D. 991, in which year the tithi ended at about 2 hrs. 20 min. after mean sunrise (for Ujjain) on Monday, 26th October. This result would place the commencement of the first year of Nitimârga-Rachamalla III. on some day from Karttika kļishna 1 in A.D. 985 to the full-moon day of Kârttika in A.D. 986; leaving a short but sufficient period, about eight to twenty months, for some Western Ganga prince, whose name would not be Rachamalla, standing between
Rachamalla II. and Rachamalla III. (6) Other years in which the full-moon tithi ended on a Monday were A.D. 994, 997,
1001, and 1004. In A.D. 1003, it may have begun very shortly before the actual sunrise at the end of a Monday ; bat in that case, of course, it could not be con
nected with the Monday for any practical purposes. (2) On the gupposition that we should regard punname as a mistake for amavase, and should calculate for the now-moon and the Müla nakshatra. Here, the results are as follows: (c) In this case, again, during the above-mentioned period, the new moon was first con
nected with a Monday in A.D. 991, in which year the tithi ended at about 4 hrs. 58 min. on Monday, 9th November. The moon entered the Mula nakshatra according to the Brahmasiddhanta system at about 17 hrs. 7 min., and according to the Garga system at about 22 hrs. 6 min., on the Monday; but according to the ordinary system she did not come to that nakshatra until about 10 hrs. 18 min. on the Tuesday. This result, in A.D. 991, would place the commencement of the first