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No. 19.)
NILGUNDA PLATES OF VIKRAMADITYA VI.
147
samvatsara in question, as a lunar year according to the southern lunisolar system of the cycle, began on 8 March, A.D. 1087. The given tithi Pausha krishna 18 ended at about 16 hrs. 40 min. after mean sunrise (for Ujjain) on 25 December, which was a Saturday. The winter solstice, as marked by the sun entering the sign Makara, occurred at 20 hrs. 40 min. on the preceding day; that is, at 3 hrs. 20 min. before the sunrise at the end of the Friday: and so any celebration of it wonld naturally be made on the Saturday. Accordingly, this date works ont satisfactorily for Saturday, 25 December, A.D. 1087."
This date gives another instance of the use of the term Vaddavāra, which is rare and noteworthy, to denote Saturday. The first component of the name, vadda, is derived from the Sanskrit vriddha, 'increased, augmented, made prosperous'. Saturn, we know, was held to be a very malignant planet : in fact, both he and Mars, the lord of Tuesday, had the name krüra-dris, 'evil-eyed'. And a verse in Ranna's Kanarese Sahasa-Bhima-vijaya, written about A. D. 1000, represents the names Mangalavāra (the most usual term for Tuesday) and Vaddavāra (Saturday) as euphemiams, adopted in order to make people forget the inauspicious nature of the two days.
In the second date the details are the Sobhaksit samvatsara, being the forty-eighth year of the Chalukya-Vikrama-varsha; the twelfth tithi, here called Sravcna-dvadasi, of the bright fortnight of Bhādrapada ; Somavāra. Dr. Fleet gives me the following remarks about this date :-"The Sobhaksit or Sobhana samvatsara began on 28 February, A.D. 1123. The given tithi Bhadrapada sukla 12 began at very closely about 12 hrs. 3 min. after mean sunrise (for Ujjain) on Monday, 3 September. This tithi is known as Sravana-dvādasi when it is joined with the Sravana nakshatra. On this occasion the moon entered Sravana at about 6 hrs. 18 min. after mean sunrise on that same day, Monday, and was in that nakshatra when the given tithi began and for some eighteen and a half hours afterwards. This accounts for the tithi being here called by the special name, and used with the weekday on which it began instead of that on which it ended. Accordingly, this date answers quite regularly to Monday, 3 September, A.D. 1123."
As to the places mentioned in the record, Nirugumda, i.e. Nirugunda (11. 64, 77), is of course the modern Nilgunda itself. The first component of the name is the Kanarese nir, niru, 'water': and the modern form gives another instance of the interchange between and i in the vernaculars which is too well known to need illustration. The second component, gunda, kunda (see also the next paragraph), is not found in dictionaries, but is probably connected with the Telugu gunta, explained in Brown's Dictionary, new edition, as a pit, hole, hollow, dell'; the Kanarese kundi, tentatively explained by Kittel as 'low or bent ground'; and the Tamil kundu, 'to sit or squat'. The whole name thus seems to mean "watery lowland". The record places Nirugunda, Nilgunda, in a group of villages known as the Vikkiga twelve, which was in the Kökali five-hundred district (1. 63). The name Vikkiga cannot be traced DOW; unless (which is not very likely) it might be found in the "Bikkikatti" of the map, six miles towards the south-south-east from Nilgunda. The Kökali five-hundred is evidently the Köga?i-nād which is mentioned in inscriptions of A.D. 982, 1071, and 1108 ;* its chief
1 The verse was given by Mr. Rice in Ind. Ant., Vol. XXIII, p. 168. For previous notes on the use of the Dame Vaddavārs, see remarks by Professor Kielhorn and Dr. Fleet in the same journal, Vol. XXII, pp. 111, 251-2.
2 See Professor Kielhorn's "Festal Days of the Hindu Lunar Calendar," in Ind. Ant., Vol. XXVI, p. 183.
• The change seems, indeed, rather a pointed one in such a word as sir, but perhaps is not more so than it is in the case of per, pår, 'great', which has taken the change in Pērür, Balur; see Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p. 271.
See Dr. Fleet's note in Ind. Ant., 1901, p. 106: the Indian Atlas sheet No. 59 of 1828, used by him, shows as Kogala" the place which is shown as "Kogall" in the quarter-sheet 69, N. W., of 1901. The Kögali district is mentioned as a five-hundred in records of A.D. 1087 and 1108; Epi. Carn., Vol. 11, Dg. 126, Jl. 12.
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