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316
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1890.
lingness to descend, he said: Dévácham aśél té dévávam, nahin té súplibô kaulá diává áni áplés ghará závam, "Come down if you wish to, or give me a sieve-full of kaula and go home."
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The poor girl looked up to see if she could get out, but to her utter embarrassment found that the passage was closed against her: and then even if she had been able to find her way ont, she did not know where to find the kaula! So she had no alternative but to go down the ladder without saying a word. She afterwards shewed the same reluctance to perform her domestic duties, but was always taunted with the words: Karávácham asél té karávam, nálin té súplibo kaula diavá áni aplés ghará závam,-"Do it if you wish to, or give me a sieve-full of kaula and go home." After a few days, however, she got reconciled to the life in the subterraneous abode of the nag, for the handsome young man was no other than the nag who had appeared to the father and to the girl as a kambal. And so in the end she lived happily with him all her life.
MISCELLANEA.
THE MALAVA ERA.
Some little time ago I came across a date, hitherto overlooked,' of the Malava era, which is of particular interest, (1) because its surroundings would prove, quite irrespectively of the Gupta era, that the Mâlava era is no other than the Vikrama era; and (2) because it shews that the Vikrama era was known by the name of the era of the Malava lord or lords,' as late as the second half of the 12th century A. D. The date occurs in an inscription on a pillar over the northern gateway of a palace at Mênâlgadh in Mêwâd, a rough reading of which was published by Kaviraj Syâmaldâs about four years ago, in the Journal Beng. As. Soc. Vol. LV. Part I. p. 46. The inscription refers itself in the coneluding lines to the reign of the Chauhan Prithviraja, and the date with which it opens, in the published version, runs thus:
In 1687 M. La Loubére, returning from an embassy to Siam, brought to Paris part of a MS. containing astronomical rules, which were analysed by Cassini (1691). The length of the year was exactly that given above, or 292,207 days to 800 years; the Tables were computed for a
words which, though incorrect, apparently are longitude about 184° west of Siam, or about that of tended to mean
Kôkanâdâ or Prayag,-possibly Lanka; the equation of the centre for the sun is given as 2°12'; and of the moon as 4°56'; the sun's apogee was placed 80° from the first point of the zodiac; and the moon's at the beginning of the moveable zodiac 621 days after the epoch of the Tables, which Cassini fixed as 21st March, 638 A. D. But the MS. contained little more. If these data agree with what may be gathered otherwise, they would point to Siam as a likely place to enquire after this and other lost Siddhantas. Will some one who has opportunity examine them?
Edinburgh, 16th July 1890.
J. BURGESS.
writer of the date under discussion took it in a singular or plural sense.
Malavésa-gata-vatsara-sataiḥ dvâdasais-cha
shaṭvimsa-parvakaiḥ,
when twelve hundred and twenty-six years of (the era of) the Malava lord or lords had gone by."
Since for the Chauhan Prithviraja we possess other dates, of the Vikrama years 1239 (Archæol. Survey of India, Vol. X. Plate xxxii. 10, and Vol. XXI. p. 174) and 1244 (ibid. Vol. VI. Plate xxi.), the year 1226 of our new Mâlava date must also, of course, be referred to the Vikrama
era.
F. KIELHORN.
THE PULISA-SIDDHANTA.
Of the Pulisa or Pulisa-Siddhanta, we know a good deal from the quotations of astronomers and of Al-Bêrûnî, in whose time it seems to have been well known. He says it was 'so called from Paulisa the Greek' (-Yunâni not Rumi), from the city of Saintra, which I suppose to be Alexandria. From a ślôka quoted from a MulaPulisa-Siddhanta by Utpala (Kern's Bri.-Sam. int. p. 50), we learn that the length assigned to the solar year in it was 365d. 5h. 12m. 368., and Al-Bêrûnî (Sachau's Transl. Vol. II. p. 18) gives other elements from the work. Has this Siddhanta then been lost since Al-Bêrûnî's time? Or, is it recoverable?
Göttingen.
1 See Gupta Inscriptions; Introduction, p. 66.
The word Málavééa being compounded with the following gata, it is impossible to say, whether the
