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No. 2) NOTE ON THE DHULEV PLATE OF MAHARAJA BHETTI No. 2–NOTE ON THE DHULEV PLATE OF MAHARAJA BHETTI
D. C. SIRCAR, OOTACAMUND Professor V. V. Mirashi has edited the above inscription in the foregoing pages. We fini it difficult to agree with many of the Professor's suggestions based on the evidence of the record as interpreted by him. In the present note we are inclined to examine primarily a group of five suggestions offered by Prof. Mirashi in this connection.
The first of these suggestions is that the era to which the date of the Dhulēv plate, viz., year 73, has to be referred “ marked the foundation of the kingdom by an ancestor of Bhētti ” who issued the charter. According to the second suggestion, which is based on the first, the said ancestor of the issuer of the plate was the latter's grandfather who also bore the name Bhētti. The third suggestion, based on the second, is that Bhātika, the name of an era, the epooh of which falls in 623-24 or 624-25 A. C. and to which the Professor is inclined to refer the year 73 of the inscription under review, is a later modification of the name of Bhētti who was the grandfather of the issuer of the Dhulēv plate and founded the era in question. According to the fourth suggestion, which seeks to justify the foundation of an era as laid down in the third, the dynasty, to which the founder of the Bhātika era and his grandson who issued the Dhulēv plate belonged, ruled over " a great empire flourishing in Rajputana and the neighbouring territory in the seventh century A. C." The fifth suggestion, apparently meant to defend the fourth, is that Rājasthān was outside the sphere of influence of the great Harshavardhana (606-47 A.C.), and therefore the era used in the Dhulēv plate cannot be the Harsha era of 606 A.D.
In our opinion, the first of the above group of five suggestions, which is really the basis of the remaining four, rests on a misunderstanding of the evidence of the Dhulēv plate. Consequently the other suggestions, based as they are on & shaky foundation, are even more unjustified. The date portion of the Dhulēv plate in line 5 of the inscription reads : rājya-pratimattā-vashaih trisaptatibhiḥ A svayuja-saṁvvatsarēh which has been amended by Prof. Mirashi as rājya-pratipattivarshe trisaptatitame Afvayuja-samvatsare. According to the Professor," the 73rd year when the grant was made is said to have been reckoned from the acquisition of the kingdom' (rājyapratipatti) ". He thinks, as noted above, that the era, to which the year has to be referred, "marked the foundation of the kingdom by an ancestor of Bhətti". Thus the" acquisition of the kingdom" is referred to the founder of the royal family to which Mahārāja Bhetti, issuer of the charter, belonged. In our opinion, the passage speaks of Mahārāja Bhētti's accession to the throne and has nothing to do with any of his ancestors.
As to the foundation of an era in ancient India, we have elsewhere shown how an early era appears to have been nothing more than the regnal reckoning of an independent king (who was not bound to use the regnal date of a suzerain) continued by his successors and how the years of an era were often referred to exactly as regnal years. The Gupta era was founded by an ancestor of Chandragupta II (376-414 A.C.). This is clear from the Mathura insoription of that monarch, the date portion of which reads: Sri-Chandraguptasya vijaya-rajya-samvatsarë pańchame 5 kälānuvarttamāna-samvatsara ekashashthe (shashtitame) 61, " in the year five-54 of the victorious reign of the illustrious Chandragupta, in the year sixtyone-61-2ccording to the era ". Here both the regnal year of the king and the year of the Gupta era are used side by side. But generally the year of the regnal reckoning was omitted while the year of the era was used as if it were a regnal year. Thus the Gadhwa inscription of the time of the same Gupta emperor has the date : fri
1 Vikrama Volume, odited by R. K. Mookerjee, Gwalior, 1948, pp. 564-65. *Cf. Select Inscriptions, p. 270; IHQ, Vol. XVIII, pp. 271-68.
• Bhandarkar's List, No. 1261. Soo also tri-Kumdraguptasy-abhivarddhamana-vijaya-rajya-sarkvatsart sha. Anavate (vatitame) (ibid., No. 1263), brf-Kumdragupla-rajya-samvalsart 98 (ibid., No. 1264), eto., eto. Noto further fri-Santikaradeva-rajya-wania 93 (ibid., No. 2042), oto.
