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92
Begar. sarba-namaskritanagi
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Kuppagade. sarba-namasyavågi (Names of the villages.) evam dasa grâmâtu dhâra-purvakam datta
I
1
The foregoing comparison will show that these four grants were all inscribed after one model, though the present one is referred to the Chaluky a dynasty, and the three others to the Pandava dynasty. The characters in which they are engraved, as before stated, are identical. It seems impossible, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that they belong to the same period. What that period was it is not so easy to determine. The present grant very positively declares it to be S. Saka 366. How far this can be received as a genuine date the learned will be able to decide. Regarding the dates of the three other grants, proceeding upon the well-known rule which gives a certain numerical value to the several letters of the alphabet, the owners have attempted to find a date from the letters ka ta kam in the phrase katakam utkalitam, and have thus arrived at 111 of the Kali yuga, or 2991 B.C. But it is very doubtful whether the phrase in question, which may be translated "having halted the army," was meant to embody any date. Another theory is that it refers to Kataka or Cuttack in Utkala or Orissa, which is stated to have been founded by Janameja ya at the time of the sarpa yaga, for officiating at which these grants were made to the Brahmans of the three agraharas. Now Kataka Chaudwara, as it was called, appears to have been a flourishing capital city before the end of the 5th century.16 According to local tradition the sarpa yúga was performed at the village of Hiremagalur, at the south-eastern base of the Baba Budan or Chandra Drona mountains in the west of Maisûr. A curious stone pillar with a spear-shaped head is still shown there as the yúpa stambha or sacrificial post used on the occasion. It is said to be efficacious in curing from the bite of a serpent any one who circumambulates it. In
18 Ind. Ant. vol. V. p. 60.
Gauj.
[APRIL, 1879.
Nonamba.
sarba-namasya bhumi
Jevam dvâdasa grâmâtu (Description and area of sarba namasya dhârâ- the land.) parbakam datta isanya simântarâņi ka
tham
tasya gråmasya simântarâni katham (Then follow the boundaries, which are described in all in a similar manner. The imprecatory verses vary in each.) (Conclusion broken off.)
datta
scriptions at the place agrahara in the time of (? 1150-82).
Witnessed and signed (see transcript). show that it was an Trailo kya Malla
The Gauj agrahara grant was certainly in existence before 1807, when Col. Mackenzie, who brought it to light, finished the Maisûr Survey. It is further said to be mentioned in a sannad by Chinna m mâji, queen of Bednur, given in A. D. 1746. The grant calls the village the Gautama agrahara. Gautama was the name of one of the distinguished line of munis who were ácháryds of the celebrated Kedaresvara temple at Balligrâme. Inscriptions show that Gautama was officiating from A.D. 1130-50. As regards Kuppageḍe I find mention of the "mahajanangalu of Kuppageḍe" in an inscription at Balligrâme, also about A.D. 1150, recording, it may be incidentally noticed, the foundation of a temple a hundred years before by a vadda byavahári. Kuppageḍe was therefore an agrahára at the former time.
Calculations are stated to have been made by the Astronomer Royal, Sir George Airy, from the astronomical data in the Gauj inscription, resulting in the discovery that Sunday the 7th of April 1521 was the date on which the solar eclipse mentioned in it took place." That this cannot be the correct date is at once evident from the fact that the eclipse is stated in the grant to have happened on Monday, and not on Sunday. It is easy to show how the mistake has arisen. Colebrooke, in commenting on the grant, attributed it to "the time of a partial eclipse of the sun which fell on a Sunday in the month of Chaitra, when the sun was entering the northern hemisphere, the moon being in the nakshatra Aśvini." A note adds, "Such is the deduction from the text, which states a halfeclipse of the sun in Chaitra, on the sun's entrance into the uttarayana, or northern path,
17 Jour. Bo. Br. R. As. Soc. vol. X. p. 81.
