Indian Antiquary Vol 14

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 82

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1885.
the date of his birth. In his remarks on the age of Sankaracharya (p. 15) Professor Bhandarkar is less fortunate. It is certainly inadvisable to assail Sankara's date, which is given most cir. cumstantially by his own followers (Yajsieśvar Blatri's Aryavidydsudhdkara, p. 226) on the strength of such evidence as that adduced from the Bankahépaturfraka. The statement, made there, that Sarkara's grand-pupil Sarvajfiatman wrote during the reign of an illustrious king, the Adity or sun of Manu's race, a Kshatriya whose orders were never disobeyed," forces us by no means to push Samkara's date back from 783 A. D. to 880. Though Professor Bhandarkar is probably right in thinking that the sun of the race of Manu" was a Chilukya prince, it does not follow that his name must have been Aditya or have ended in Aditya, nor that he must have belonged to the earlier Chalukya dynasty, which was overthrown by the Rathors in the eighth century, For in the Indian inscriptions many a prince is called "the sun of his race," though his name is very different (see e. g. the case of Molarija I of Anhilvan. Ind. Ant., vol. VI. p. 199, 201, 203, &c.) As regards the second point, it must be borne in mind that the Chalukyas who ruled, after Tailapa II. had restored the fortune of the family in the tenth century, likewise derived their descent from Manu (Fleet, Southern Dynasties, p. 17, note 2). As far as I can see, the note in the Sankshepasárfraka is worthless for historical purposes.
In the next Classes, XI.-XIV., Nydya and Vaibeshika, Jyotisha, Medicine, and Tantras, there is nothing of special interest. The more import. ant works acquired were already represented in the older collections, while the new additions are mostly unimportant. But Professor Bhandárkar's remarks and extracte furnish a considerable number of very valuable data for the history of those sciences during the middle ages. He fixes the dates of a good many writers who, though themselves unimportant, are quoted by and quote greater men whose times are uncertain
In Class XV., Art and Architecture, the copies of the Rajavallabhamandana and of the Vdetumandana, manuale for stone-masons and architects oomposed in the first half of the 15th century are of value. An edition and translation of these worke, for which also the MSS. in the Elphin- stone College Collection of 1867-68 (Class IX., Nos. 1–3) are available, could be easily pre. pared with the assistance of an intelligent Silêta of Northern Gujarat or Rajputana. During my tour in 1873-4 I met several men of this caste who could recite the Rljavallabha and explain it. The translation would be important
for the officers of the Arcbæological Survey. Of still greater interest is the letter-writer entitled Lekhapañchdéika (Class XVI. No. 410), which gives fifty model forms for letters and deeds, including a land-grant and a state-treaty. Though the Bombay collections of former years contain several treatises of this description, there is none among them which gives forms for official documents, like that discovered by Professor Bhandarkar. Its importance lies partly therein, that it shows to us how the clerks of the Indian kings managed to draw up the deeds which we find engraved on copper. It is now evident that model forms, like those given in the Pañ. childikd, were the sources on which they drew. Moreover the two documents furnish, as Prof. Bhandarkar has pointed out, interesting details from the history of Gujarat. The land-grant which is represented as recording a donation made in Vikramasarhvat 1288 by Råna Lavanyaprasada, i. e. Lavanaprasada, the father of Viradhavala of Dholká, while Bhimadeva II. ruled at Anhilvåd, confirms the statements of the chroniclers regarding the relation between the last of the Chaulukyas and the Vaghêlês. The treaty of peace which purports to have been concluded in the same year between the same Råņi and Maharaja Simghana, in all probability explains, as Prof. Bhåndárkar thinks, how the chief of Dhalká got out of the difficulty mentioned in Sümeśvara's Kirttikaumudi. It would have been well, if the dreadfully corrupt text of the land-grant had been corrected with the help of the Chanlukya land-grants, published in the Indian Antiquary. It is interesting to note that the treaty of peace shows in rahanfuam (App. II. p. 225, 1. 4) a Sanskritised Gujarati word rahevur instead of the correct Sanskrit sthåtavyam
The collection of Jaina books (Class XVII.) contains a number of MSS. of works already well represented in the earlier Bombay colleotions, which, I fear, will be useless. But it includes also various new books of importance, such as the Bhojaprabandha of Merutunga and Sumati's lives of the Yugapradhậnas, from which Prof. Bhandarkar has extracted much useful literary information. The conclusion of the Report gives a short review of the whole collection of MSS. deposited in the Dakhan College, which shows also the number of works lent to various scholars in India, Europe, and America. It is a matter of great satisfaction to see that the splendid collection is well cared for, and that, owing to the wise liberality of the Director of Public Instruction and of its immediate custodian, it continues to render important services to Sanskrit philology.
G. BÜHLER,