Indian Antiquary Vol 04

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 23

NOTES ON HINDU CHRONOGRAMS.
JANUARY, 1875.]
especially Brahmans. Mr. Fergusson says that miniature utensils have been also found with them, which would certainly strengthen his view; but I have not met with any myself, and indeed the custom appears to have been more or less local. I think Mr. Fergusson is mistaken in supposing that this tiny earthenware suggested to the natives the idea that the tombs belonged to a race of pigmies, but that it arose, as I have always gathered from the natives, from the holes or apertures so generally occurring in the slabs at one end of the structures, and which are regarded as doors or entrances to what are popularly called houses, for the natives have no idea of their being sepulchres.*
In the accompanying plate the figures marked 1, 2, 3, and 4 are examples of the miniature ware, of the actual sizes of the originals. 1, 2, and 3 are formed of a rather dark-coloured clay, and were found placed one upon the other, the middle vessel, No. 2, containing the incised beads. figured below; these are of red carnelian, with ornamental bands and spots scratched upon them in white; they are bored, too, showing that the cairn-builders understood how to work these very hard pebbles, and they are exactly similar to carnelian beads found in English barrows. No. 4 is formed of red clay with particles of mica intermixed, and is supported on three short feet.
Nos. 5, 5 delineate a very characteristic form of a tall urn or jar, standing upon three, and sometimes four short legs. This form occurs not only in Coorg, but wherever kistvaens are found throughout Southern India. I have frequently disentombed it in the Koimbatur and
NOTES ON HINDU CHRONOGRAMS. BY G. H. DAMANT, B.A., B.C.S., RANGPUR.
In Sanskrit as in Masalman inscriptions the date is often expressed by words, but, contrary to the usage of the Muhammadans, amongst whom each letter has a fixed value, the Hindus usually employ a separate word to represent each figure, although a word may occasionally be taken to represent two figures. The date must, as a rule, be read from right to left. In a date I found on a temple at Bordhon Kuti Rangpur, the sentence representing the date is Yuga-dahana-rasa-kshmá, which gives the date
A new theory respecting the use of the hole is advanced in a preceding paper, vol. III. pp. 277, 278.
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Salem districts. These urns vary from one to three feet in height, are made of red clay, very strong and close-framed, and usually contain fragments of bones and ashes. The legs or feet on which they stand present a feature of obvious usefulness that has quite vanished from modern Hindu pottery, so far as I know, all chattis and pots used to-day being roundbottomed and troublesome to steady. Footless pots are also common enough in the cairns, but with them are always found large quantities of earthen stands (figure 8) on which to place them, but no such devices are in use now.
No. 7, with its two curious spouts, would seem to intimate that distilling in some shape was known to the people who made it; and No. 6 may be remarked as presenting a shape very similar to some pottery in the Indian Museum from the ancient city of Brahmânâbâd, in Sindh. This is interesting because, with the exception of the pottery from the megalithic tombs, this from Brahmânâbâd, to which the date A.D. 700 appears to be ascribed, is probably the most ancient Indian earthenware of which any examples survive, and forms a link between pre-historic and modern pottery. Amongst the Brahmaṇâbâd specimens there are urns the same in shape with figures 5, 5 in the plate, but without the legs, and standing instead on a flat-rimmed bottom, like a slop-basin; and there are small vases with the large halves just like figure 6, but with narrower necks and mouths. Two or three small vases with single high loop-handles manifest in design a Greek influence widely removed from any
Hindu fashion.
1634 (Saka, as shown by another expression in the inscription); here kahma, the earth = 1, rasa = 6, the six rasas being madhu, honey, sweet; lavana, salt; katu, pungent; tikta, bitter; amla, sour; and mishta, sweet: Dahan = 3, it is a synonym for Kritika, the third nakshatra; and yuga 4, the four yugas.
The words employed to represent numbers are usually taken from the Hindu system of philosophy, mythology, or very commonly astronomy or astrology (jyotisha), and in many cases the
+In some parts of Western India vessels for holding grain, ghi, &c. are still in use with short feet or supports.-ED.