Indian Antiquary Vol 19

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

Page 13

JANUARY, 1890.)
MAHAKUTA INSCRIPTION OF MANGALESA.
(e) Dato 4; the year 399, Vaisikhn-vadi 4 Chandre. The year 399 is an expired year, and, with the encantat scheme of the lunar fortnights, the corresponding date (for 399 +
1042 = Saka 1441 expired) is Monday, 18 April, A.D. 1519, when the 4th tithi of the dark half ended 20 h. 47 m. after mean sunrise.
() Date 1; the year 74, Vaisakha-vadi 12 Gurau. The year 74 is an expired year, and, with the aminta scheme of the lunar fortnights, the corresponding date (for 74 + 1042 = Suka 1116 expired) is Thursday, 19 May, A.D. 1194, when the 12th tithi of the dark half ended 2 h. 50 m. after niean sunrise.
These results may well speak for themselves; and all that I need say in regard to them is that, when, with the epoch A.D. 1118-19, we are obliged to take the year of one out of the six dates exceptionally as a current year, years must be exceptionally treated as current also in the case of other eras the dates of wbich are ordinarily recorded in expired years, and the epochs of which are settled beyond dispute.
Time will show whether I am right or wrong; but I put more faith in the way in which my dates work out with the epoch A.D. 1118-19, than in the modern almanacs of Tirhut, disagreeing as they do among themselves. And, with the statement of Abu-l-Fazl, supported by the MS. date La-sam 505 = Sakê 1546 and by the results of my calculations, I would maintain that the equation (La-sam 293 = Sakê 1321) furnished by the copper-plate grant of king Sivasimha is wrong; and that that inscription itself, suspicious as it would seem to be also on other grounds, has either been tampered with or is a forgery, got up at a time when the true epoch of the Lakshmaņasêna era had been forgotten, as in my opinion it has been forgotten by the almanac-makers of Tirhut.
At present I have neither the time nor the means of writing on the history of the Sena kings. But I would ask : When we are told that, at the conquest of Bengal by Muhammad Bakhtyar, which by Mr. Blochmanno is placed about A.D. 1198-99, the last Hindu king Lakhmaniya had been reigning for 80 years, 10 does not this really mean that that conquest took place in the year 80 of the Lakshmaņasóna era, Srimad-Lakshmanasensdévapadanam-atita-rajyê sam 80 P
SANSKRIT AND OLD-KANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
BY J. F. FLEET, Bo.C.S., M.R.A.S., C.I.E.
No. 185.-MAHAKUTA PILLAR INSCRIPTION OF MANGALESA. This inscription was first brought to notice by me in 1881, in this Journal, Vol. X. p. 102: at a time when I was without the means of obtaining a reading of the text of it. Subsequently, in 1882, an ink-impression of it was sent to me by Mr. H. Cousens, of the Archeological Survey of Western India, from which I was able to quote some of the contents of it in my Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, p. 21 f. I now edit it in full, with a photo-lithograph, from the same materials.
Mahakata is the current name of a group of temples, aboat three miles away over the hills to the east of Bâdami, the chief town of the Bâdami Taluka in the Bijâpar District, Bombay Presidency. This is the form of the name that was given to me when I visited the place itself. And it is the form which, on fresh inquiries at Bijapur, has again been certified to me; coupled now, however, with the remark that the place is called Mäkáta and Makata, and occasionally Magada, by uneducated people who cannot pronounce the proper word correctly ! But there is no doubt that the real original name is Makufa. It actually occurs in line 9-10 of the inscription of the Mahásámanta Bappuvarasa inside one of the temples (ante, Vol. X.
* See ante, Vol. IV. p. 800. 10 Sir H. M. Elliot, History of India, Vol. II. p. 807.
Jour. Beng. As. Soc., Vol. XLIV. Part I. p. 377.