________________
232
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1889.
respect of orthography, the only points that call for notice are (1) the use of the guttural nasal, instead of the anusvára, in vansyair, line 22 ; (2) the use of v for 3 in orahmanya, line 14; though the proper sign for b itself is used in bahu, line 9, and in bahubhir, line 26, and probably also in samanubódhayati, line 16, where, however, the letter is much damaged; (3) the doubling of m before y, in rammye, lino 2; and (4) the doubling of t before r, in mátápittror, line 17, and in sagottraya, line 18; though not in mitra in the same line, and in other words.
The inscription is one of a Rashtrakața chieftain named Nandardja, and otherwise called Yuddhasura, whose subordinate feudatory rank is indicated by the absence of any of the paramount or even ordinary regal titles in the description of him and his ancestors, and by the fact that his official, under whose direction the charter was written, was only a Sándhiviprahika, - not a Mahásáindhivigrahika. It is non-sectarian ; the object of it being only to record the grant, to a Brahman, of the village of Jala kuhe, bounded on the east, south, west, and north, by the villages of Kiņihivatpara, Pipparika, Jaluks, and Arjunagrama, respectively. These places have not yet been identified; and the record itself does not give any indication as to the neighbourhood in which they should be found. For such cases as the present we much require, for other parts of India, similar lists to that of the very useful Postal Directory of the Bombay Circle, which was issued in 1879 under the superintendence of Mr. H. E. M. James, Bo.C.S., and which gives the name of every town and village the postal arrangements of which are under the Government of Bombay.
As regards the date of this record, from line 21-22 we learn that the grant was made on the fall-moon day of the month Karttika. And in line 29 f. we have, for the writing of the charter, Saka-Samvat 631, expressed in words, and not specified either as current or as expired. The period of the grant is thus A.D. 708-709, or 709-710, according as the given year is applied as current or as expired. But there are no details that can be tested by caloulation. Mr. Prinsep's difficulty in respect of the date arose from his failing to recognise, in line 30, that shatchhv is a mistake for shatso, which stands for shatsu in combination by sandhi with a word, éka, commencing with a vowel; and that what we have after shatchkv-é is evidently the upper part of a ka, which plainly at first was omitted altogether, and then was not properly inserted, because the ring-hole left hardly room enough to form the whole letter conveniently. In his text, which was primarily based on Mr. Ommanney's decipherment, with amendments by his own Pandit, he gave the reading Saka-kdla-samvatsaré satéshu shatkéna(1) trini-Sttaráshu. And he repeated this in his introductory remarks; adding the words "the obvious meaning of this is six handred and thirty besides." But, as giving rather his own interpretation, he proceeded to write" after the word satdshu, hundreds,' in the plural number, two unknown characters “ follow, which may be very probably numerals. The second has much resemblance to the "modern 8, but the first is unknown and of a complex form : its central part reminds us of the "equally enigmatical numeral in one of the Bhêlsâ inscriptions. It may, perhaps, designate in "cipher the word ankd, in numerals,' thus purporting in the year of Saka, hundreds, numeri"cally 8, and thirty over.' A fertile imagination might again convert the cipher into the word " ashtaké, eight,' afterwards expressed in figures; but I must leave this curious point for “ future elucidation, wavering between 630 and 830 for the date of the document." As I have indicated above, the difficulty in the way of settling this date before now, has been due to the fact that for some reason or other the shu of satéshu was omitted in the lithograph, which appears to be chiefly based on a hand-drawing by Mr. Ommanney. There is in reality no puzzle at all in the correot reading of the date, which was, in fact, quite evident on my examination of a drawing of the second side of the third plate, which was sent to me as a sample from which to decide whether the original plates were worth transmitting. The passage containing the date includes no numerals, and it simply means " in six centuries of years, increased by the thirty-first year, of the Saka era."
A really ourious point in this inscription is the irregular way in which a short prose passage is introduced in line 5-6. The words tasy-átmaván átmajah, at the end of line 6, are the last seven syllables of a line in the Sárdûlavikridita metre; whereas, the immediately
