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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[Vol. XIV.
This array of documents provides us with the insoriptional chronicles of the Ganga kings of Gangavādi, or Mysore. They have been found in all parts of the country, and of various dates throughout the period to which they relate, & period for which but for them the local history is a blank. They present a consistent and consecutive account, not discredited by contradictory statements or anachronisms. They are supported and confirmed by scores of stone inscriptions of all periods, and by references in contemporary records of neighbouring and other dynasties. They are thus entitled to acceptance as oredible and authentic, though it would be unreasonable to expect that chronicles for so extended & period of antiquity should be free from all difficulties.
Objections have been raised to them, by Dr. Fleet, who prefixed the epithet 'sparious' to the whole series, and this has been simply repeated by others, following his authority. But the grounds of his opposition mainly relate to faults that may be in some cases detected in style or orthography. These, however, are not such as to affect the veracity of their contents. The basis of his sweeping distam thut all the Ganga inscriptions on copper plates are
spurious,' and only those on stone genuine, is on the face of it unsound and paradoxical. Why should a line of kings i88ae chronicles of their past which are true and to be accepted as such when on stone, but false and to be rejeoted when on metal? Especially when, as here, such stone inscriptions as have survived, even for the early periods, confirm, so far as they go, the accounts on the motal plates, which, being portable and indestructible, have more easily been concealed and preserved. In fact, it is not uncommon for a stone inscription to state that the grant recorded in it was also engraved on a copper plate.
Then a condemnation, perhaps for a discrepancy in the week day of the date, as sometimes happens, is not a sufficient reason for rejooting them as altogether false. Dr. Fleet has himself said that the fact that a date has been recorded accurately does not prove the authen. ticity of record, any more than an incorrect date proves that the record in which it is put forward is spurious. This completely onts away the ground from under the feet of those who insist unduly upon the value of sach testimony, though it is not to be disregarded.
As regards the paleography, again, although changes have undeniably taken place in the forms of certain letters from time to time, it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line, as Dr. Fleet does at the year 804, for instance, and to lay it down that a particular form cannot occur before that, in which particular he has been shown to be incorrect. The standards, therefore, by which he proceeded to judge tha Ganga copper plate grants and reject them as 'sparious' were themselves in need of revision and correction. Approaching these grants with preconceived ideas, if he found that the facts did not support his views--well, so much the worse for the facts.
It might seem desirable here to recapitulate the history of the Gangas, as derived from the numerous inscriptions on metal or stone which have been brought to notice. But for this infor. mation I may refer, for the present, to my work Mysore and Coorg from the Insoriptions' and to my revised edition of Coorg Insoriptions in the New Imperial Series of the Archæological Survey of India.
1 There seemed to be sense of some personal annoyance in the matter, for he says his difficulty was to put himself in the frame of mind from which they can be imagined to be genuine. He even aw nothing strange in writing to me-- If you will only give up the Gangas, I will do anything you like for you'!
A somewhat similar state of things to met with elsewhere. For Canon Isaac Taylor, in his book The Alphabet,' refers to Prof. Mahaty's complaint that even eminent English Hellenista are found to be helpless in face of Greek inscription. Mr. Paley, on first becoming acquainted with the inscription at Abu Simbel, the cardinal monument of Groek opigrapby, finding he could not reconcile it with his Homeric studies, pronounced the whole thing abous!
