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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
tion of a chhatra-bhanga, or 'interruption of the succession',-lit. 'a breaking of the umbrella (of sovereignty)',-it would seem that a period of anarchy ensued between the death of M a ǹgalisvara and the accession of Puliksi II. But it follows, from the above dates, that Mangalisvara reigned for at least forty years. He cannot, therefore, have been much over thirty years of age, if indeed so old, when he succeeded. Taking him to have been then thirty years old, he was born in Saka 458. And then, even if we assume that Pulikêś i I. was not more than twenty years of age when he succeeded, and that Saka 411-the date of the present grant-was the very year of his accession, it follows that he was at least sixtyseven years old when his second son, Ma ngalisvara, was born, to him. And this, I apprehend, is hardly probable.
But, apart from any such argumentative reason, there are substantial grounds for disputing the date assigned to Pulikê sî I-1, The plates are more numerous, and the language is more prolix, than is usual in grants of this early date.-2, The name of the dynasty is written Chalukya', in l. 5, with the vowel of the first syllable long. Whereas, in all genuine grants of early date, it is written either 'Cha lkya', or 'Chalik ya' and 'Chalukya', with the vowel of the first syllable short. Now, Sir Walter Elliot, in his paper On Hindu Inscriptions at Madr. Jour. of Lit. and Science, Vol. VII., p. 193, tells us, and on ample authority, that from the middle of the eighth to about the middle of the tenth century A.D., "the power of the Chalukyas was alienated for a time, or suffered a partial obscuration." It was restored in the person of Taila pa II., in Saka 895 (A.D. 973-4) or thereabouts. And I find from inscriptions that, unless metrical reasons required the use of the form 'Chalukya', he and his successors are always called 'Châlukyas', and that this form of the name is peeuliar to them. There seems, too, to have been a special reason for this; inasmuch as 'Chalukya' means 'the descendant of a Chalukya', this second derivative form points, not only to a temporary eclipse of the Chaluky a power, but also to an actual break in the direct line of hereditary succession.-3, In 1. 15, Pulikêsi I. is called 'SatyasrayaPulakêsi', and, in 1. 31, he is called simply
[SEPTEMBER, 1878.
Satyasraya.' In no other inscription is this title applied by itself to anyone anterior to Pulikesi II., who, as we learn from the Aihole inscription, was the first to acquire the name. And only in No. XXVII. of this Series, transcr. 1. 5, is it elsewhere applied to Pulikê si I. at all; and it is coupled there with his own proper name, and, I suspect, is introduced by the writer without any authority, save that it was one of the titles of the similarly-named grandson, Pulikê sî II.-4, The mention of the horse Chitrakantha, in 1. 11, is at variance with all the other inscriptions, which tell us that it was Vikramaditya I. who was the owner of "a horse of the breed called Chitrakantha", or "of an excellent horse named Chitra kantha."-5, The mention of the Kuhun di district in 1. 22 is another anachronism. For in 1. 27 of No. II. of my Ratta Inscriptions at Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc., Vol. X., p. 194, we are told that it was the Ratta Great Chieftain Karta virya I., about Saka 970, who, "when king, fixed the boundaries of the country of Ku hundi"; and I have not found this district spoken of in any other early inscription.-6, This grant is dated in the Vibhava samvatsara. By the Tables in Brown's Carnatic Chronology, the Vibhava samvatsara would be Šaka 410,quite near enough for the purpose. But, let the time at which the cycle of sixty samvatsaras was first devised and used by astronomers be what it may, the cycle was not in use in public documents in the Chalukya kingdom at the date to which these plates purport to belong. The earliest instance of its use that I have met with is in an Old Canarese inscription on stone at Nandwaḍige in the Kalâdgi District; part of the name of the king, and the word expressing the centuries in the date, are unfortunately effaced, but I shall show hereafter that it is an inscription of the Rashtrakuta king Dhârâvarsha-Kalivallabha, or of his son Govinda-Prabhutavarsha or Gôvinda III., and that the date of it is Saka 722, the Dundubhi samvatsara. The earliest indisputable instance to which I can refer is an Old Canarese copper-plate grant of the Rashtrakuta king Govinda III., dated Saka 727, the Subhanu samvatsara; the original plates belong to Sir Walter Elliot and afe now with me, and a transcription of
