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174
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[ VOL. XXIII.
darkar who points out the difficulty that if the year of the Sõhāwal plates is taken as the Gupta year, the month Ashādha should be intercalary, but in none of the years 509,510,511 and 512, which might be taken to correspond to G. E. 191, was it so. "Perhaps in this date”, says Prof. Bhandarkar, " ēkõna-navaty-uttarë is intended for eka-navaty-uttarē, which is not unlikely 48 we know that when there are two or more identical letters or words, one or more are inadvertently omitted by the writer or engraver. This date 189, if referred to the Gupta era, becomes equivalent to A.D. 507 or 508, but even then there was no intercalary Ashādha in 506, 507, 508 or 509. On the other hand, if we refer 189 to the Kalachuri era, we obtain A.D. 437 as its English equivalent. And we do find an intercalary month of Ashādha in A.D. 437." The difficulty pointed out by Bhandarkar is more apparent than real; for as Dikshit has shown the month intercalated in the Gupta year 191, (which according to the rules of intercalations was Srāvana) must have received its name from the preceding month, a conclusion to which the late Dr. Kielhorn was forced in the calculation of the date of the Betul plates of Samkshõbha'. An authority for such a custom bas again been recently pointed out. No valid objection, therefore, remains to the view that the dates of the Uchchakalpas are in the Gupta era.
(4) The drafting of the Uchchakalpa records and the symbol on their seals indicate that the Uchchakalpas rose after the Guptas. In the genealogical portions of their inscriptions we find the same form used as in the Gupta records. Unfortunately nearly all the seals of the Uchchakalpa plates are lost; but from the one specimen that has been described by Fleet it seems that the Uchchakalpa kings formed their seals on the model of those of the Guptas. There is no such resemblance noticeable between the records of the Uchchakalpas and those of the Early Kalachuris.
The foregoing discussion will show that the view that the Uchchakalpa dates refer to the Gupta era is the probable one in the present state of our knowledge.
No. 27.-THE AILUR INSCRIPTION OF KOPPERUNJINGADEVA.
By V. VENKATASUBBA AGYAR, B.A., MADRAS. This inscription' is engraved on a rock above a natural reservoir of water to the south of the village of Vailûrs in the Wandiwash taluq of the North Arcot District. The letters are incised boldly and the record is in a good state of preservation.
1 See his List of Northern Inscriptions, p. 159, n. 5.
? Even this view is not free from difficulties. According to the epoch which suits early Kalachuri dates the English equivalent for the present date occurring in Ashādha would be expected to fall in A.D. 438 or 439. According to the epoch which suits later Kalachuri dates it should fall in A.D. 438, if the year is taken as expired as is usually the case. If the year is taken as current, it will of course fall in A.D. 437, but such cases are exceptional, apart from the fact that the epoch determined by Kielhorn does not suit early dates.
3 Above, Vol. XXI, p. 125. • Indian Culture, Vol. I, p. 693.
See for instance that the names of the queens sre mentioned along with those of the ruling princes in the l'chchakalpa plates as in the Mathura Stone Inscription of Chandragupta II (C. I. I., Vol. III, p. 25), the Bilsad Stone Pillar Inscription of Kumāragupta I (Ibid. p. 42), etc.
.C.I.I., Vol. 111, p. 125.
No. 418 of 1922 of the Madras Epigraphical collection
* This village is different from Vayalür in the Chingleput District, wherein the inscription of the Pallava king Rajasimha is found. It is, however, spelt as Vāyalür in the d. R. on Epigraphy for 1922, but its present name is Vailür as given above.
