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No. 49.] A FURTHER NOTE ON THE DATE OF THE MANNE PLATES OF STAMBHA. 295
No. 49.-A FURTHER NOTE ON THE DATE OF THE MANNE PLATES OF STAMBHA.
BY PROF. V. V. MIRASHI, M.A., NAGPUR.
I am obliged to the Government Epigraphist for giving me an opportunity to state my views on the points raised in Dr. Altekar's note on the date of the Manne plates of Stambha Ranavalōka. This date1 is admittedly imperfect, as the name of the month in which the lunar eclipse occurred is not mentioned in it. The mere mention of a nakshatra in connection with a lunar eclipse is not sufficient to specify the exact month in which it occurred, as the paurnima of a month is not invariably associated with the nakshatra after which the month is named. In my article on the Lōhārā grant I have suggested that some words like Märgasirsha-paurṇamāsyām are inadvertently omitted in the date of the Manne plates, as the only lunar eclipses which could have been intended is that in the month of Margasirsha. Even then the date does not become quite regular; for the asterism on the full-moon day of Märgaśirsha in Saka 724 was Rōhiņi, not Pushya. But we can easily explain this irregularity by supposing that though the grant was made on the occasion of a lunar eclipse on the 13th November A.D. 802, the plates were actually issued four days later, on the 17th November, when the moon was in conjunction with the asterism Pushya. Those who are familiar with the dates of our ancient records know that copper-plates were sometimes issued a few days after the particular grants recorded in them were made and that such irregularities in their dates are by no means rare. In my article I have cited the date of the second set of Manne plates, which belongs to the same period, as another instance of the same irregularity. These latter plates purport to have been issued on the occasion of a lunar eclipse on Monday, the full-moon day of Pausha, when the moon was in conjunction with the asterism Pushya, in the Saka year 732. A reference to Diwan Bahadur S. K. Pillai's Indian Ephemeris will show that the lunar eclipse did, indeed, occur on the full-moon day of Pausha in A.D. 810 (corresponding to the expired Saka year 732), but the week-day was Saturday and the asterism at the time of the eclipse was Punarvasu, not Pushya. It seems plain therefore that though the grant was made on Saturday, the 14th December A.D. 810, the plates were actually issued two days later on Monday, the 16th December, when the moon was in conjunction with Pushya. The irregularity in the date of the Manne plates (first set) is exactly 'of the same type as that in the date of this grant..
Dr. Altekar prefers to account for the irregularity in the date of the Manne plates (first set) in a different manner. He concedes that the grant was made in Saka 724, but he supposes that the plates were actually issued six or seven years later in Saka 730 or 731, when there was a lunar eclipse in the month of Pausha. The reason for this unusual delay in the issue of the plates, according to Dr. Altekar, is that Stambha did not receive the permission of the imperial government earlier, as Govinda was himself engaged in a number of campaigns and the necessary prasasti was not yet ready. Dr. Altekar further supposes that the drafter, the donor and the donee had no accurate information about the occasion of the original grant, but only remembered that it had been made at a lunar eclipse in winter in Saka 724. They therefore mentioned, as the occasion of the grant, the lunar eclipse which had occurred recently in the month of Pausha in Saka 730 or 731. Hence the date is found to be irregular.
1 The wording of the date is chatur-vvim saty-uttareshu sapta-bateshu Saka-varshishu samatiteshu.... Soma-grahane Pushya-nakshatre....Ep. Carn., Vol. IX, Nelamangala 61.
Above, p. 217.
There was another lunar sclipse in this year, but it occurred much earlier, on Jyeshtha-paurnima, the 21st May A.D. 802.
