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MISCELLANEA.
MARCH, 1887.]
The Brahman, not knowing the reason for the course events had taken, ran back and reported the reply of the executioners to the king. The Minister's interference in the affair at once kindled suspicion in the king's mind. He unsheathed his scimitar, and holding it in his right hand, twisted the lock of hair on the Brahman's head into his left. He then asked him whether he had not tried to dishonour his queen the previous morning, and told him that, if he concealed the truth, he would make an end of him. The poor Brahman now confessed what he had seen, on which the king threw down the scimitar and fell down on his knees before him.
CALCULATIONS OF HINDU DATES. No. 5.
In the Haidarabad grant of the Western Chalukya king Pulikesin II., the date (ante, Vol. VI. p. 73, 1. 11 ff.) runs-Atmanaḥ pravardhamânarajyabhisheka-sathvatsarê tritiyê Saka-nripatisamvatsara-satêshu chatustrims-Adhikêshu pafichasvatitêshu Bhadrapad-Amavasyâyâm sûryagrahana-nimittam,-" in the augmenting third year of (my) own installation in the sovereignty; when five centuries of the years of the Saka king, increased by the thirty-fourth (year), have gone by; on the new-moon tithi of (the month) Bhadrapada; on account of an eclipse of the sun.'
35
This gives us, for calculation, Saka-Samvat 535 (A.D. 613-14) current; the month Bhadrapada (August-September); the new-moon tithi; and an eclipse of the sun. And,-in addition to the record in this inscription that Pulikėsin II. was, at the time of this grant, resident at the city of Vatapi, which is the modern Badami, the chief town of the Badami Taluka in the Bijapur District, the Western Chalukyas were a southern dynasty; and, primâ facie, all the details of the date have of necessity to be treated in accordance with the southern reckoning.
"The words of thy benediction, O respected Brahman, have only now been explained to me. Thou hast sown nothing but good; and good, in having thy life preserved, hast thou reaped. The wicked Minister,-whose conscious guilt made him so very anxious to hear about thy death,-because he sowed a bad intention in his heart, has reaped evil, even a death that he never expected. Another victim of evil sowing remains in my queen, in whom I placed an undeserved love."
MISCELLANEA.
109
So said he, and ordered her to the gallows. The old Brahman he appointed his Minister, and reigned for a long time.
and only the second is nindya, or 'to be looked on as under prohibition.' But, in taking the month to be the natural Bhadrapada; the question then arises, whether we are to take it as the second of the two Bhadrapadas, in accordance with the present custom of Southern India, or as the first of them, in accordance with the more ancient custom mentioned in the Brahma-Siddhanta, in a verse,-to which my attention was drawn by Mr. Sh. B. Dikshit,-quoted by Pandit Bapu Deva Shastri in his edition of the SiddhantaSiromani of Bhaskaracharya, p. 49, note, and running
Mêsh-di-sthê savitari
yo yo masaḥ praparyatê chândraḥ | Chaitr-Adyah sa jñêyal
parti-dvitvê-dhimasu-ntyaḥ || "Whatever lunar month is completed when the sun is standing in Aries and the following (signs), that (month) is to be known as Chaitra, &c.; when there are two completions, (there is). an intercalated month, (and it is) the latter (of the two)."-In the first case, the corresponding English date, as closely as it can be determined by Gen. Cunningham's and Mr. C. Patell's Tables. is Thursday, the 20th September, A.D. 613; and is the second case, Tuesday, the 21st August of the same year.
In connection with this date, however, there are at least two points of difficulty.
In the first place, in Saka-Samvat 535 the month Bhadrapada was intercalary. In the inscription there is nothing to indicate that the month referred to is the intercalated Bhadrapada; and the presumption is against this, inasmuch as intercalated months are held to be inauspicious, and the performance of ceremonies in them is prohibited; unless there are two intercalated months in the same year; in which case the first of them is prasasta or 'stamped as excellent,'
• Cunningham's Indian Eras, p. 157; Patell's Chronology, p. 120.
On neither of these days, however, was there an eclipse of the sun. And the only solar eclipse of A.D. 613 occurred on Monday, the 23rd July."
There can be no doubt that this is the eclipse intended. It was calculated some years ago by Mr. D. B. Hutcheon, for Dr. Burgess, who passed the notes on to me; and Mr. Hutcheon found, roughly, that, at Bâdâmi, the eclipse began at 9-38 A.M., with the middle at 11:14 A.M., and ended at 12:53 P.M.; that, at the time of greatest * Cunningham's Indian Eras, p. 210.
