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274
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1888.
and Siripolemaios were the two best temporary rulers," which I am prepared to known rulers of Ujjain and Paithân, or that, admit,-cannot be made the basis of a chronoif he meant to say that they were the reign logical theory. The basis for settling the ing kings of those towns according to the chronology of the Andhras is given by the third most recent information received from India, synchronism, which shows that Rudradaman his statement was based on reports collected not and Chaturapana Satakani or Siriyaña Satakani by others, but by himself. The notes, “Ozene, were contemporaries. It is in great part due to the royal residence of Tiastanes'” and “Bai- Pandit Bhagvânlal's discoveries that we can thana,' the royal residence of Siripolemaios' " recognise Rudradâman as the contemporary are perfectly correct, even if these individuals of one of the two Andhras mentioned, and thus lived several hundred years before Ptolemy's connect the Andhras with the era of Chashtana's time. They may, however, merely convey the descendants. The latter must have been destroyed meaning that these two princes were the most shortly after their 310th year by Chandragapta, remarkable and famous of whom the author some time before the 82nd year of the Gupta knew. On the other hand, even if we suppose era. As I have stated in my remarks on the that Ptolemy meant to say that Tiastanes Nânâghâț inscriptions (Burgess, Reports, vol. V, and Siripolemaios ruled over the two towns pp. 73-74), the equation A. K. 310+-=A. G. according to the latest information received, 82— follows from the latest date on the what is there to prove that his latest intelli- Kshatrapa coins and the earliest date of the gence was not very antiquated? The writer ! Guptas in Málava. If the Gupta sauvat of an extensive work like his must have copied begins, as seems now certain, about 190 A. D. a good deal' from others, and we know from the beginning of the era of the Western his own statements that his book is not based Kshatrapas falls in the middle of the first altogether on original research. His sources century before Christ. Whether it is identical may have been a hundred years old, and even with the Vikrama era, is a question which I will older, and there is not the slightest evidence that not discuss here, though the assumption appears these two particular notes belong to Ptolemy to me a reasonable one. But the era of the himself. Under these circumstances the syn. Western Kshatrapas has certainly no connection chronism, "Palumâyi and Chashtana were con- with the Saks Samvat.
AN INSCRIBED ROYAL SEAL FROM WALA.
BY PROF. G. BÜHLER, PH.D., C.I.E., VIENNA. Some time ago a clay seal, measuring 2:9 The letters closely resemble those of the landinches by 2:6 inches, on the face, and about 27 grants of Dhruvasena I. of Valabhi, the only inches high, bearing on the face & rude notable difference being that the mátrá or a. impression of the sun and the moon, and below stroke is represented by a curve turning towards at an inscription in four lines, was found at or the right, and standing above the letter after in the neighbourhood of the ruins of Valabhi. which it has to be read. The same practice is Colonel J. Watson, into whose possession it followed in the highly ornamental Jhalrâpâhs came, sent to me several paper-rubbings and & inscriptions, and on the seal of Sarva var. sealing-wax impression, together with the read.man Mankhari, published in the Jour. Roy. ing of the inscription by his Pandit, Acharys As. Soc. vol. III, p. 378. The preservation is, Valabhjt. As I think that the document may in spite of the brittle nature of the material, eventually become important for the history of tolerably good. In the first line the fourth and Western India, I publish my own and Valabhji's fifth aksharas bave been damaged, in the second interpretations of it.
the last two have almost been effaced, in the third
See also my discussion of this point in Burgess, Reports, vol. V, p. 73. In order to illustrate these remarks I will give another drishanta. Would it not be natural and correct, if a geographer of the present day appended to the name Ghaeni, the remark, the capital of Mah. mud," and would it not be a fatal mistake to infer from this remark more than that the author lived later than Mahmud Ghaznevip I must further add, that this
objection to Mr. BhAQ Dáji's ronsoning was suggested to me by Sir E. C. Bayley.
• See now Sir E. C. Bayley's article on "Certain Dates occurring on the coins of the kings of Cabul," Num. Chron. 3rd series, vol. II. pp. 128-165. Sir E. O. Bayley too, expresses the same opinion regarding the method to be used in settling the beginning of the Kshatrapa era.
