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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXI.
The chief importance of the Kalawan epigraph is that it enables us to test this explanation and other attempts at translating the crucial word.
If my explanation were right, we should have to assume that there was an intercalated Sravana in the year 134 and an intercalated Ashādha in the year 136, and this double indication would make it possible to arrive at almost certain results with regard to the epoch of the era, if the system of the Siddhāntas had already come into being.
Dr. van Wijk has again been good enough to come to my assistance. He has pointed out that such a state of things is impossible, unless we were to assume that the year 134 were reckoned as current and 136 as elapsed, so that the interval between the two dates could be about three years. It seems to me that we have no right to make such an assumption.
In such circumstances it becomes necessary to admit that my attempt at arriving at a dating of the older series of Kharoshthi records through astronomical calculations was a failure, and the meaning of the word ayasa, ajasa remains just as doubtful as when the Taxila silver scroll was discovered.
The Kalawan inscription helps us, however, to eliminate certain possibilities. Since the consonant of the base word aya, aja can be written both y and j, it cannot correspond to Sanskrit y or ry, because -y- remains &s y or is dropped, and ry appears as ry, riy, or, occasionally, as y in the North-Western Prakrit. We cannot, therefore, think of ayasya, an irregular genitive of the pronominal base in ayam, this, or of aryasya.
It is also impossible to derive the word from adya, belonging to to-day (adya). It is conceivable that adya, first, might become aja and further āya, because the connected words adi and ūdika would tend to preserve the long å and prevent the regular change of adya to ajja. But no such counteracting influence would be at work in the case of adya from adya. Even the development of adya, first, to āja, and further to āya, is a priori very doubtful. And now that we know that there cannot be any question of "first " Srāvana or Ashādha, as opposed to a "second", intercalated one, the explanation becomes extremely unlikely, the more so because no reasonable sense can be made out of suoh an addition.
The use of side by side with y in one and the same word seems to show that we have to do either with an old single intervocalic, or with a voiced 8-sound, a z. In other words, ayasa, ajasa must be the genitive of aja (āja) or aza (āza). I am unable to find any possible word aja, aja which could suit the case, and, so far as I can see, we must return to the explanation originally proposed by Sir John Marshall, that ayasa, ajasa means “ of Azes," the double writing aya, aja being parallel to the doublets kuyula, kujula of the name of the first Kadphises king.
Sir John took the word ayasa in the silver scroll to characterize the era used in the record as instituted by Azes. “The absence of any titles attached to the name of Azes," he said, "is exceptional, but will hardly occasion surprise when it is borne in mind that his era had been in use for more than a century, and that his dynasty had been supplanted by that of the Kushang." Professor Rapsons took the same view, and added that " Azes could scarcely have been furnished with his wonted title, Great King of Kings' in this inscription without prejudice to the house then actually reigning ".
The late Dr. Fleet has, 80 far as I can see, definitely proved that the addition ayasa cannot be explained in this way: "From the vast mass of inscriptional material which is now avail. able I cannot quote a single record in which the name of a real king (I mean, of course, excluding
1 cf. Corpus, PP. ov, cvil. *J. R. A. 8., 1914, pp. 973 ff. The Cambridge History of India, 1, p. 582 J. R. A. 8, 1914, pp. 097, 995.
