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294
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXVI.
The date of this inscription was read by Sahni as Mahārāja-Dēvaputrasya Kanishkasya samvatsare 10 4 Pausha-māsa-divase 10, i.e., on the 10th day of the month of Pausha in the year 14 of Mahārāja Dēva putra Kanishka. Sahni referred this inscription to the reign of Kanishka, the great founder of the Kushāna era. His reading of the date and the consequent attribution of the record have not generally been called in question. But even a cursory glance at the photo-lithograph which accompanies his article will show that the date has been misread. As in other Kushāņa records, it is expressed in numerical symbols. The year of the date is shown by two symbols, the second of which is undoubtedly 4 as read by Sahni. The first symbol, however, does not stand for 10. This will be quite clear from the fact that it is not identical with the symbol for 10 used further on in the same line to denote the day. I read this symbol as 50, so that the date of the record is 50 4, i.e., the year 54.
In support of my reading I call attention to the form of the symbol which occurs in another Mathurā inscription of the same year, edited by Bühler. There the form is the same as in the present inscription with only this difference that, whereas the symbol appears quite vertical in the former, it is slanting in the latter. It is a cursive form of the usual symbol for 50 which consists of an arc open to the right, with both the ends turned inside. See, for instance, the form of the symbol in the Ginjā inscription of Bhimasēna, dated in the year 52. In both the aforementioned Mathură inscriptions of the year 54, the lower and upper curves of the symbol are turned into loops. An intermediate form is shown by the symbol used in another
Symbols for 50 used in the Brāhmi records of Mathurā,
OR
1 2 3 4 inscription found at Mathurā itself, which is dated in the year 50. In this only the lower curve has been turned into a loop. The value of this symbol is clearly shown by two inscriptions from Mathurā dated in the years 52 and 57 where the date is given both in words and in numerical symbols.
The Mathurā pedestal inscription is thus dated on the 10th day of the month Pausha in the year 54 during the reign of Mahārāja Dēva putra Kanishka.? As already remarked by Sahni,
1 It has of course been pointed out by some that the characters of this inscription are too developed for the reign of the great Emperor Kanishka, the founder of the Kushāna era ; for, it shows the cursive forms of m, & and h which are believed to have become current in the Gupta age. But the difficulty is sought to be removed by one scholar by referring the date to the Kalachuri-Chëdi era of A. D. 248-49 (See Ind. Cult., Vol. IV, p. 413). Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar has accepted the reading of the date given by Sahni (above, Vol. XXI, p. 2).
* See above, Vol. XIX, pl. facing p. 97 and No. 4 of the symbols reproduced here.
• Above, Vol. I, p. 391, No. XXI, and plate. See No. 3 of the symbols reproduced here. Bühler at first read this symbol as 80, but in view of another inscription from Mathură (above, Vol. II, p. 210, No. 38, and plate), in which the year 57 is given both in words and numerical symbols, he took it to be equivalent to 50. Vincent Smith read the same symbol as 40, but, as Lüders has shown, it undoubtedly stands for 50. See Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXIII, p. 105.
• See No. 1 of the symbols reproduced here.
Above, Vol. II, p. 203, No. XVII, and pl. See No. 2 of the symbols reproduced here. • Above, Vol. II, p. 203, No. XVIII, and p. 210, No. XXXVIII, and plates.
* This will also explain why the characters of this inscription are somewhat more developed than those in the rooords of Kanishka I. As a matter of fact, the looped , ocours throughout in a Mathură Brāhm inscription of the year 25 as shown by Bühler (above, Vol. I, pp. 372-73). M with an unjoined middle and cursive h occurs in an inscription of Saka 127 at Jasdan (Kāthiāwād) as pointed out by D. K. Bhandarkar (above, Vol. XXI, pp. 2-3).
