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138
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1889
preserved. - The ring-hole is in the upper part of the plate. The ring, which had been cut when the grant came under Mr. Fleet's notice, is about " thick and 41" in diameter. It fits very tightly into a round hole in the bottom part of the usual bell-shaped seal, which is about 31" high. The surface of the seal is circular, about 3}" in diameter; and on it, in relief on a slightly countersunk surface, there are at the top, a representation of Garuda, exactly as in F. above; across the centre, the legend érímaj-Jayachchandradevah Il; and at the bottom, a sankha-shell. - The average size of the letters is between " and " The engraving is good; though, as usual, the interiors of some of the letters shew marks of the working of the engraver's toot. The plate is thick and substantial; and the letters, which are rather shallow, do not shew through on the reverse side of it at all. The characters are Nagart, and the language is Sanskrit. As regards orthograpby, b has been denoted by the sign for v everywhere except in the word babhramur; the deatal sibilant has been eighteen times employed for the palatal sibilant, and the palatal six times for the dental sibilant; sha has taken the place of kha in sé sharani, line 26; and the conjunct mura has been employed instead of mra in ámora, line 24, and támvrakaa, line 35; besides, the dental has occasionally been used instead of the lingual nasal, e.g., in uttarayana, line 25.
This inscription also is one of the Paramabhattáraka, Maharajadhiraja, and Paraméscara, Jayachchandradeva, who records that, when at Benares, he granted the village of Daupali, together with (what I consider to be four pațakas or outlying hamlets!) Vavaharapihe, Chata[ge]lauapall, Saravatatatalia, and Naugams, situated in the Ambulli pattala, on the banks of the D[ai]vaha, to the Kshatriya Rajyadharavarman, the donee of the preceding two inscriptions F and G. And the date on which this grant was made, is stated, both in words and in decimal figures to have been, - Sunday, the 4th lunar day of the bright balf of Pausha, of the year 1234, on the Uttarayaņa-Samkranti or commencement of the sun's progress upon its northern course. Like the preceding, this grant was written by the mahakshapatalika, the Thakkura Sripati.
As regards the date, taking 1234 to be a year of the Vikrama era, the possible equivalents for Pausha enkla 4 would be:- for the year 1234 current, - Tuesday, 7 December, A.D. 1176; and for the year 1234 expired, - Monday, 26 December, A.D. 1177. In A.D. 1176 the Uttarayana-Samkranti took place on December 25th, which, irrespective of the fact that the week-day would be wrong, shows at once that the day intended by the grant cannot possibly be December 7, A.D. 1176. In A.D. 1177, on the other hand, the Uttarayana-Samkrånti took place about 5 h. 18 m. after mean sunrise of Sunday, December 25th ; and the 4th tithi of the bright fortnight of Paushu commenced about 4 h. 53 m. after mean.sunrise of Sunday, December 25th. and ended about 6h. 35 m, after mean sunrise of Monday, December 26th. I therefore believe that the day intended is Sunday, 25 December, A.D. 1177, which was really the 3rd of the bright fortnight of Pausha; and that the meaning intended to be conveyed by the wording of the date is this, that the donation was made on Sunday, the day of the Uttarayana-Samkrânti, during that part of the day when the 4th tithi was running.- Accordingly 1234 has to be taken as the expired year; but, the day falling in the bright fortnight of Pausha, there is nothing to show whether the year should be regarded as a northern or southern year. The river and the localities mentioned in the inscription I am unable to identify.
EXTRACTS FROM THE TEXT.2 20... ...3-śrîmaj-Jayachchandradevo vijayî | 11*D[ai]vah&-pårê Amvu
(mbu)Ali-pattalâyâm Vavaharapiha + Chata[ge]21 lauapali Saravatatatalia Naugams êtaih saha DoupAll-grâma-nivåsino
nikhila-janapadân=u pagatân=api cha râja rajñi-yuvara1 Compare lines 16 and 17 of the inscription K. below.
? From the impression. Up to this, the text of the inscription, excepting some differences of spelling, is the same as that of the inscription E.
. These signs of punctuation are superfluous.
