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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1882.
bration is entirely confined to young girls, and is in vogue all over the Kangrå District. It is celebrated thus. All the little girls of the place turn out of their houses one morning in March, and take small baskets of dab grass and flowers to a certain fixed spot, where they throw them all into a heap. Round this heap they stand in a circle and sing. This goes on every day for 10 days, until the heap of grass and flowers reaches a respectable size. They then cut in the jangals two branches having three prongs at one end, and place them, prongs downwards, over the flower heap so as to make two tripods or pyramids. On the single uppermost points of these branches they get a Chitrerd or painted-image-maker to construct two clay images, one to represent Siva and the other Parvati. All the girls join in collecting the clay for these, and all help as much as they can in the construction of the images themselves, this being a "good work." The girls then divide themselves into two parties; one for Siva and one for Parvati, and set to work to marry the images in the usual way, leaving out no part of the ceremonies, not even the barat or procession. After the marriage they have a feast, which is paid for jointly
by contributions solicited from their parents. After this at the next Sankrant (Baisakh) they all go together to the river-side, and throw the ralis into it at any point where there happens to be a deep pool and weep over the place, as though they were performing funeral obsequies. The boys of the neighbourhood frequently worry them by diving for the ralis and rescuing them and waiving them about, while the girls are crying over them. The object of this fair is to secure a good husband. These fairs are held on a small scale in all the principal places in Kangra, but the chief ones are at Kangrå itself, where the Bangangå is the river used for the disposal of the ralis, and at Chari, a village 10 miles from Kangra and 6 miles from Dharmśâld on the R. Gajj. The largest fair is held there.
Chitrerd is an interesting word, showing ingertion of rafter a consonant, which is not uncommon in Panjabi. Conf. thanda - thandra. cold: pdhund - prdhund, a guest : beta = betrd, a son, etc. Chitrerá comes from chitr, a picture, and its usual forms are chiterá, chitdrí, chitrkar, and its usual meaning is a painter.
R. O. TEMPLE.
ASIATIO SOCIETIES. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for king of Jóla, of which the capital was Puligere January opens with an excellent article by Sir (Lakshmêsvara). This Arikesari is said to have William Muir on the Apology of Al Kindy the protected Vijayaditya, who took refuge with him Christian, written at the court of Abdallah al against the Sakala Chakravartti named Gujjiga Maman of Baghdad (A.D. 814-833). The identity or Gajjiga, who attacked him; he is the seventh of the author is somewhat doubtful, but "there in descent from Yuddhamalla, and third from seems no ground whatever for doubting that the Baddiga, who "seized Bhima." Here Mr. Rice he was in reality what he professes naturally falls into an anachronism in supposing this may and consistently throughout the Apology to be, a be Bhima the Chalukya spoken of in the Rudrascion of the noble Kinda tribe, belonging further deva inscription of S. 1084, whereas, if there is to a branch which had clung unwaveringly to any truth in the chronology he produces, Baddiga their ancestral faith." In it the author "casts must have lived 250 years before the Bhima aside the prophetical claims of Muhammad, cen. whom Rudradôva denounced in the 12th century. sures some of his actions in the strongest lan- The dynastic list is not supported by any inscripguage, reprobates the ordinances of Islam, especially tions yet brought to light. those relating to women, and condemns Jehad Mr. Charles Rodgers of Amritsar has an ex. with scathing denunciation. It is difficult to con. cellent note on a coin of Shamsu'd-Dunya wa ceive how such plain-speaking was tolerated even u'd-Din Mahmud Shah, dated 718 A.H. This at the court of Al Måman." But we learn from Shamsu'd-din Mahmud Shah is hitherto quite Al Biruni (A.D. 1000) that it not only was unknown. but may have been Asadu'd-din, son of published, but was actually in circulation, in the grand uncle of Kutbu'd-din, or perhaps Muhammadan country a century and a half after Gulam Bacha Shaban Beg styled Wafa Beg, the time at which it first appeared.
governor of Dihli in 717-18 A.D. Mr. L. Rice contributes a short paper on the poet Mr. W. Simpson follows with a note (illustrated) Pampa or Hampa founded on his Adi Purdna and on "A Sculptured Tope on an old stone at Dras, Vikramdrjuna Vijaya or Pampa Bharata. He is Ladak.” This stone is referred to by Cunningham said to have been born in 8.824, and to have written (Ladak, pp. 381-82). Prof. S. Beal contributes a his two great Kannada poems in 8. 863, under "Note on Plate xxviii, fig. 1, of Mr. Fergusson's the patronage of a Chalukya prince Arikesari the Tree and Serpent Worship," in proof that the
