Indian Antiquary Vol 08

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 16

10
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1879
traced its descent by the marriage of one of its princesses with the king of Bengal, which event has been placed above in the sixth or seventh century before Christ, the above quotations run upwards from that time to the reign of Raghu, king of Kosala. Ragha's date might be ascertained from that of his great grandson Rama: but the date of Rama has been variously placed from 2029 B.C. downwards. Bentley, in his Historical View of Hindu Astronomy, p. 13, from astronomical data, has placed the birth of Râms on the 6th of April 961 B.C.; and no later date than this is likely to be thought of: Taking the usual average of twenty-five years for a generation, Raghu must be placed about a centary earlier than Râm'a; and in this way we arrive at about 1035 B. C. for the latest date likely to be claimed for Raghu's invasion of the Dakhan. Some considerable time must
then be allowed for the growth of the state of things which he found there. So we are brought at last to this conclusion,That the Dakhan has been in possession of civilized institutions and manners for thirty centuries and more from the present time. And if this conclusion should surprise anybody, it is nevertheless in perfect accordance with the fact, now scarcely to be doubted, that the rich Oriental merchandize of the days of king Hiram and king Solomon had its starting-place in the seaports of the Dakhan; and that, with a very high degree of probability, some of the most esteemed of the spices which were carried into Egypt by the Midianitish merchants of Genesis xxxvii. 25, 28, and by the sons of the patriarch Jacob (Gen. xliii. 11), had been cultivated in the spice gardens of the Dakhan."
SANSKRIT AND OLD CANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
BY J. F. FLEET, Bo.C.S., M.R.A.S.
(Continued from Vol. VII., p. 808.) No. L.
however, I have found the version thus obtained The most complete account, in a connected to be a very useful guide to the correct reading. form, of the Western Chalukya and Ch &- Meanwhile, in No. 2 of Mr. Wathen's Ancient luk ya genealogy, is to be found in a stone- Inscriptions on stone and copper, at Jour. R. As. tablet inscription at a shrine of the god Basa- Soc., Vol. II., p. 378, and Vol. III. p. 258. I vaņņa at the temple of the god Sô mês varafound an account, transcription, and abstract on the north side of the village of Yêwur or translation, of a copper-plate grant, in the De. Yêhûr, in the Sôrâpûr or Surapur Tlakha, which vanagari characters and the Sanskrit language, is on the eastern frontier of the Kalådgi Dis- on three plates found at Miraj in the Southtrict. An abstract translation of part of this ern Maratha Country. It records & grant by inscription is annexed to Sir Walter Elliot's Jayasimha III., or Jagadé kamalla, paper On Hindu Inscriptions at Madr. Jour. of dated Saka 946 (A.D. 1024-5), the Rak ta kshi Lit. and Sc., Vol. VIII., p. 193; and a transanvatsara. scription of the whole of it is given at Vol. I., The genealogical portion of the Yewûr tablet p. 258, of his MS. Collection. It records a is in Sansksit; and, down to and including the grant by Vikramaditya VI., or Tri. mention of Ja yasimha III., it agrees almost bhuvana malla, in the second year of his word for word with the corresponding portion reign, the Pingala samvatsara, i.o. Saka 999 of the Miraj plates. These plates, in fact, must (A.D. 1077-8). To enable me to edit the text, be one of the identical grants on which, as the I applied to Major Euan-Smith, First Assistant Yêwûr inscription itself says, the genealogy Resident at Haidarkbåd, to obtain for me a given in it is based. By collating these three tracing or a rubbing of the original stone. He versions, the copy of the Yewûr tablet in Sir was kind enough to give the requisite instruc- Walter Elliot's MS. Collection; the second tions to the local authorities; but the result was copy of the same, obtained through Major Euannot a tracing or a rubbing, but partly a transcrip- Smith; and Mr. Wathen's reading of the Miraj tion and partly a hand-copy. In many respects, plates,- I have succeeded in establishing the
10 See Heeren's Hist. Res., Asiat. Nations (Bohn's ed. vol. II. p. 325; art. 'Cinnamon,'Encycl. Brit. (now ed.), 1846), vol. I. pp. 43, 350, 443; Rawlinson's Herodotus) vol. V. p. 785; kloo Tennent's Ceylon (1860 ed.), vol. I. (1862 ed.), vol. II. p. 414; Yule's Marco Polo (1871 ed., p. 600.