________________
JULY, 1875.]
SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
207
Paridhậvi sarivatsara, while the valorous king Sadasivadêvaraya was ruling at his capital of Vidyanagari.t
No. 6.-The stone-tablet containing this inscription stands up against the same wall. There are no emblems at the top of the stone. This in- scription, again, is in good order, but the letters, as before, are not of a good type; it consists of thirty-one lines of about fifty letters each. With the exception that it belongs to the time of Sadasivadovamahârâya, I could not ascertain the date and contents of this inscription.
No. 7.-The stone-tablet containing this in- scription stands against the E. wall of the en- closure of the temple. The emblems at the top of the stone are a linga with the sun above it and the figure of Basava with the moon above it.
The inscription consists of twenty-two lines of about twenty-three letters each. The letters of this, again, are of a bad type and are also very much defaced, and with the limited time at my disposal I could not make out the contents.
No. 8. --The stone-tablet containing this in. scription stands up against the wall as the preceding. The emblems at the top of the stone are the same as those of the preceding. There are traces of about eighteen lines, but hardly a letter is distinctly visible from beginning to end.
In one of the smaller shrines, outside the cen. tral temple but in the same courtyard, there is a handsomoly carved stone Mancha', cot, bedstead, or litter, on which the image of the god is carried about the town on the occasion of festivals. The following inscription on the litter is published at page 277 of the Canarese School Paper for March 1873 by Srinivas Ramchandra Bankâpûr, Master of the Vernacular School at Badangôd in the North Canara District :frad * TTTT HIGHÈ Pea
पक्षे ताच्छिवरात्रसौम्यदिवसे सेदारघुश्माभृता। qh 3444(i) TTTAT:(?) SETT #(3)
दत्त(त्तः) श्रीमधुकेश्वराय रुचिरः श्रीमजयंतीपुरे॥
With the corrections that I have suggested, the translation is :-"In the year Vibhava, in the dewy seasont, in the month of Magha, in
the bright fortnight, on Wednesday the day of the Sivaratri, this handsome litter of stone. intended for the festival of spring, was given to the god) Sri-Madhukôśvara by king Raghu of Sôdå, at the prosperous city of Jayantipura, in the pavilion used as a hall of audience."
The litter was shown to me when I was at Bana wasi, but the inscription was not pointed out to me nor did it attract my attention in dependently; I do not know exactly whereabouts on the litter it is. There is said to be another sacred litter or bedstoad somewhere in the Fort, similar to the one mentioned above, but withont a roof and destitute of any elaborato carvings.
The original of the inscription is, I presume, in the Kayastha characters. The publisher of it in the Canarese School-Paper interprets the first word numerically as giving, by inverting according to rule the order of the letters, the date 641. The system according to which words meaning 'earth' or 'sky' are used to denote 'one', words meaning 'arrow' to denote
five', words meaning sun' to donote 'twelve', &c., is well-known. There is given, at page 22 of Brown's Carnatic Chronology, another system called 'Katapayîdi', according to which each consonant of the Sanskrit alphabet has a numerical power; the table is as follows :
-ci
4 4 4 4 34 44
wo Nacio
| 8
In both systems the unit is named first, then the ten, and so on, and the Sigures have accordingly to be reversed in reading off the date. Such a word as Srívarshe' of the text must be
• This king is not mentioned in the list of the kings of Vijayanagare given at page 281 of Vol. IL of Thomas' ed. of Prinsep's Antiquities. But his name occars in other inscriptione,-€.9., Major Dixon's No. 17, from Harihara, dated Salon 1476 or 1477, Ananda samvatsara; and id.,
No. 24, or Mr. Hope's No. 38, a, from Harihara, dated Saka 1483. Durmati sashuatecra. † A corruption of Vijayanagara.
The two months Magha and PL Alguna, from about the middle of January to the middle of March
"Ankündih udmats gatin."
