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104
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
brought an offering to the goddess, and her husband had gone out at daybreak to pluck flowers, an attendant of hers concealed herself by way of a joke behind the pedestal of the goddess. She was chewing pán at the time, and when the cowherd as usual came to pray she handed him a piece of the betel she was chewing, which he took and swallowed, believing that the goddess herself had really given it. There and then he attained an unlimited intellectual power, and became an eminent authority in logic, in grammar, and in poetry. As he happened to hold in the right hand a day-lotus (padma) and in the left a night-lotus (utpala), Vasantî asked him which he preferred, the beautiful day-lotus with its thick stalk, or the little night-lotus with its delicate stalk; he replied: 'In my right hand the daylotus, in my left the night-lotus; whether with coarse or delicate stalk, take which thou wilt, O lotus-eyed!' As the lady now perceived that he had gained intelligence, she held him henceforward in high honour, and as he had shown so much reverence to the goddess Kâli he obtained the name of K âlidâ sa, or the slave of the dark goddess. After this he became the crown-jewel of all poets, and composed the Eight Messengers, the Cloud-Messenger (Meghadúta) and the others, the Kumarasambhava, and the other poetical Śâstras. Both he and Saptavar man belonged to the sect of the Heterodox [.e. non-Buddhists]."
[APRIL, 1875.
IV. Authorities. (From the conclusion.) "If any one ask on what authorities this work depends, let him know that although many fragmentary histories of the origin of the (Buddhist) religion, and stories, have been composed in Tibet, I have not met with any complete and consecutive work; I have therefore, with the exception of a few passages, the credibility of which proves their truth, taken nothing from Tibetan sources. As, however, I have seen and heard the comments of several Guru-Panditas on a work in two thousand slokas composed by Kshemendrabhadra, a Pandita of Magadha, which narrates the history as far as king Râma pâla, I have taken this as my foundation, and have completed the history by means of two works, namely the Buddhapurána composed by Pandita Indradatta of a Kshatriya family, in which all the events up to the four Sena kings are fully recorded in 1200 slokas, and the ancient History of the Succession of Teachers (âchâryas) composed by the Brahman Pandita Bhataghati. In chronology too I have followed these three works, which agree except in some minor particulars. Their narrations have, as is obvious, a special reference to the rise of religion in the kingdoms of Aparântaka [India proper], but I have not been able to describe its history in Kaśmir, Udyâna, [Swat], Tukhâra, Koki [the Indo-Chinese peninsula], and on the different islands, as I have never seen or heard of any books on the subject.'
A GRANT OF KING DHRUVASENA I. OF VALABHI.
BY J. G. BÜHLER, PH.D.
The grant of Dhruva sena I, a transcript | breadth has been broken up into four fragand translation of which are given below, was fourd a few weeks ago by the Kolis at Wallâ and came into my hands together with another śásana issued by Dharasena II. Like all documents of the Valabhi kings, it is written on the inner sides of two copper plates, which are joined by copper rings. The plates in question had, when I received them, only one ring left; the second, which probably bore the seal, had been torn off. The size of the plates is eleven inches by eight. Their preservation is tolerably good. The left-hand upper corner of the first plate has, however, been smashed-probably by an unlucky blow of the finder's pickaxe. A piece four inches in length and one inch in
ments. Fortunately these have been preserved. The second plate is slightly damaged at the lower end,-it would seem, by the same accident which injured the first plate. This injury is more serious than the other, because it prevents me at least from making out several words. When I received the plates, they were covered in some parts with caked mud, and for the greater part with a thick layer of brilliant verdigris. At the edges the copper is disintegrated. A prolonged immersion in lime-juice removed the dirt and verdigris so far that the letters, with very few exceptions, are plainly recognizable. The published Valabhi sasanas make it possible to determine the value of the characters which have remained
