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98
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1879.
praised in the world, displaying in the army of the Châlokya king Ahava Malla the valour of the great, he received thence the title of Great.
Now Ahava Malla's reign was from 1040 to 1069, and the title of Vira-Tala-Prahâri given to Sthira Gambhîra Nolamba is evidently related to the Ari-Raya-Mastaka-Tala-Prahâri of Vira Noņamba. Moreover, Jaya Simha, the son of Ahava Malla and younger brother of Vikrama, who, as we have seen, in 1079 had the name Vira Noļamba, describes himself both as "prince of the world-renowned Pallava race" and "head jewel of the Chalukyas." It seems clear, there fore. that his mother, Ahava Malla's queen, must have been a Pallava princess. And from other evidence I conjecture that the alliance thus entered into between the Châlukya and Pallava families may have been coincident with the formation of the Nolambavadi or Nonambavadi province as a barrier against the encroachments of the Cholas; who, I take it, had overrun that part of the country, then in possession of the Pallavas, but which the Western Châlukyas recovered, and while retaining it gave it a name of distinctively Pallava connection,
These considerations seem to support the view that the grants are not older than the end of the 19th century. But reasons have been
given for assigning them to the 12th century. Falling back upon ka ta ka m as containing the date, and taking the letters in the direct order, though this is not the role, we have (Saka) 1115, or, as usual, reckoning that year as completed, A.D. 1194. This would apply to each of the three agrahâra grants. But Vira Noņamba's, in addi. tion to ka ta ka m, has Šaka 366, which might be reconciled by taking the sum of these figures, 15, as the year expressed without the centuries, a mode of dating of which there are examples. Of course this is a violation of ordinary rules, but the inscriptions being confessedly irregular may perhaps be dealt with accordingly, provided that probability is not violated. From Struyk's Catalogue of Eclipses there appears to haye been a partial solar eclipse on the 22nd April 1194
Should A.D. 1194 be admitted as the probable date of these grants I conceive they were made by a common descendant of the Chalukya and Pallava families, so long rivals in power, but now both alike bereft of sovereignty and kingdom. Furthermore, as previously sug. gested, the date 366, or A.D. 444, may have been a true one preserved in the annals of the two houses as that when the first matrimonial alliance had been entered into between them, and which period of their early glory they thus regretfully recalled.
ON SOME EARLY REFERENCES TO THE VEDAS BY EUROPEAN WRITERS.
BY A. C. BURNELL, Ph. D. During the Middle Ages there existed a reasons I shall now give; what the real date belief in a mythical, blasphemous treatise termed of the book is, must be settled by bibliographers De tribus impostoribus, which, (if I recollect on other grounds. correctly,) was supposed to have been written The Vedas are referred to more than once in by Averroes, the typical misbeliever. In the this book, and this name appears as Veda' seventeenth century, a Latin treatise of this and Vedae' (plural). It is important to note name again came to notice; a few copies that the writer knew the correct form of the printed (according to the title page) in 1598 word according to the Benares (or received) have attracted much attention from biblio- pronunciation of Sanskrit. graphers, and the book has been, twice at least, The first explicit account of the Vedas is in reprinted in modern times. It has been assumed the valuable work of A. Rogerius, De Open Deure, to be a fabrication of the seventeenth cen- which is still, perhaps, the most complete actury--after about 1651-because it refers to count of S. Indian Hinduism, though by far the the Vedas, and this information (it has been earliest. The author was a native of Holland, wrongly assumed) could only have been taken and went to India as a chaplain in the service from the well-known work of Rogerius, De of the Dutch East India Company. He was at Open Deure, which was printed in that year. Pulicat in this capacity from 1631 to near the This assumption is, however, impossible for end of 1641, and while there made the acquaint
11. Moses, Christ, and Muhammad.
