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BAGUMRA PLATES OF DADDA II.
JULY, 1888.]
Dr. Bhagvanlal thought, a genuine one, could not be denied. In his later article on the Ilâo grant, Mr. Fleet added two new arguments against the genuineness of U. and I. to those brought forward by Dr. Bhagvânlâl. First he pointed out that the description of Dadda I. given in Khê. I. and II. agrees literally with that of Dadda II. in U. and I.; and that the latter grants show some corrupt readings not occurring in the former. Hence he inferred that the author of U. and I. must have known the Khêdâ plates and have copied from them. As the Khêdâ plates had been shown to belong to the seventh century, U. and I. could not possibly have been written in Saka-Samvat 400 and 417, or 478 and 495 A.D. Secondly, he remarked that no weight could be attached to the apparently correct mention of the solar eclipse of June 8, 495 A.D., in I., because it was not visible in India and for this reason would not be noticed by an Indian astronomer.
Of late, the correctness of Sir A. Cunningham's view regarding the initial date of the Chedi has been disputed. Dr. Kielhorn's calculations of the numerous week-days mentioned in the grants of the Chêdi kings tend to show that it began not in 249, but in 248 A.D. This alteration makes no difference for the week-day and the lunar eclipse mentioned in Na. They agree with either assumption. In the one case the year 456 has to be taken as current, in the other as elapsed. But the complicated data in Kâ., which alleges that the grant was made in Samvat 486 on Ashadha su di 10, when the sun had entered the sign of Karkataka, offer a difficulty which Dr. Kielhorn has not yet found it possible to solve.10
Nevertheless, I believe that among the various inferences drawn by Dr. Bhagvanlal from the contents of Na., and from the Chalukya dates, the following may be considered as correct. (1) Na. is certainly dated according to the Chêdi-Samvat; and the supreme lord Sriharshadêva, mentioned as the contemporary of its first Dadda, is the
15 As the following discussion will show that the suspicions against U. and I. are unfounded, I shall not again refer to this point. But I may add that April 21, 665 was, according to the Amânta reckoning of the Gujaratis, the new-moon day of Vaisakha, not of Jyaishtha.
See his letters in the Academy of Dec. 10 and 24, 1887. 1 Dr. Bhagvânlâl held to the last that the Chêdi
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same person as Śriharsha-Harshavardhana, alias Silâditya. (2) It seems most probable that Kâ., too, belongs, not as I thought formerly, to the fifth, but to the eighth century A.D. Dr. Bhagvanlal's further inference that Na. and Kâ. have been issued by the same Jayabhata, may be also accepted provisionally. The interval between their two dates is not too long for one reign. But the possibility that the donors may be different persons, between whom another Dadda reigned, is not altogether excluded. Dr. Bhagvanlal's assertion that the close resemblance of the characters of the two inscriptions and of their form or wording show them to belong to the same reign, says too much. The characters of two grants, only thirty years apart, will not show any great difference, whether they were issued by one or by two different kings of the same dynasty. The wording of the two documents does not at all agree. The descriptions of Jayabhata in Na. and Kâ. have only two words in common, samadhigatapanchamahasabda and śri; and the enumeration of the conditions of the grant shows many discrepancies. And (3) I must also agree with Dr. Bhagvânlâl in his assumption that Khê. I. and II. belong not to the fifth but to the seventh century, though I am unable to accept his arguments. He said "the characters of the Kaira, Nausârî and Kivi grants are all precisely of the same type and as like each other as can possibly be the case of inscriptions, the actual engraving of which was done by different men. On the other hand, the characters of the Umetâ and Ilão grants are identical with each other and differ entirely from those of the four grants." These sweeping assertions are not quite borne out by the facts. Even a superficial comparison of the facsimiles shows that the characters of Khê. I. and Khê. II. do not fully agree, and that they agree still less with Na. and Kâ. On the other hand, Khê. I. frequently agrees with U. and I. Thus the signs for ja, ba and va are exactly the same in U. I. and Khê. I. The
Samvat is identical with that of the Traikûṭakas. In his paper on two new Chalukya inscriptions, published in the Verhandlungen des siebenten Inter. Or. Congres ses Arische Section, he made pp. 219-222 some very ingenious suggestions as to its origin. He conjectured that Saka-Samvat 170 or 248 A.D. was its initial point.
10 See Dr. Kielhorn's letter in the Academy of Jan. 14, 1888.
