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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1890.
Calculating again, as in the case of the preceding dates, for Kârttika-vadi 15 both of V. 794 current and expired, and also of the surrounding years V. 793 current and V. 795 and 796 expired, we obtain the following results: -
V. 793 current,
370
pûrnimânta Thursday, 20 October, A. D. 735; no eclipse. amânta Saturday, 19 November, A. D. 735; no eclipse. V. 794 current, -
pûrņimânta: Tuesday, 9 October, A. D. 736; no eclipse. amânta : Wednesday, 7 November, A. D. 736; no eclipse. V. 794 expired,
purṇimânta: Saturday, 28 September, A. D. 737; no eclipse.
amânta: Monday, 28 October, A. D. 737; nakshatras, Visakha and Anuradhâ; an altogether invisible solar eclipse, 8 h. 13 m. Greenwich time, or, at Ujjain, 7 h. 16 m. after mean sunrise.
V. 795 expired,
pûrņimânta: Friday, 17 October, A. D. 738; a total solar eclipse, not visible in India, Greenwich time 0 h. 11 m. of 18th. October, or, at Ujjain, 23 h. 14 m. after mean sunrise of 17th October.
amânta Sunday, 16 November, A. D. 738, when the new-moon tithi ended 10 h. 38 m., and the nakshatra was Jyeshtha up to 22 h. 20 m. after mean sunrise; no eclipse.
V. 796 expired,
pûrnimânta : Wednesday, 7 October, A. D. 739; a solar eclipse, not visible in India. amânta: Friday, 6 November, A. D. 739; no eclipse.
From the above it is at once clear that there is no day in V. 794, either current or expired (nor in V. 793 current or V. 796 expired), which would at all satisfy the requirements of the date. In V. 795 expired, which is one year later than the year of the date, Kârttika-vadi 15, by the amanta scheme, the adoption of which by the writer is clearly suggested by the term aparapakshe of the date, did fall on a Sunday, the 16th November, A. D. 738, and on that day the moon was in the nakshatra Jyêshthâ, as required; but there was no solar eclipse. There was, however, such an eclipse, not visible in India, on the preceding new-moon day, the 17th October, A. D. 738. And taking these two facts together, Professor Bühler, when editing the inscription, arrived at the conclusion that the grant was actually made on the occasion of the (calculated) eclipse, i. e. on Friday, 17th October, A. D. 738, which was the new-moon day of the amánta Aśvina, and that the document was drawn up exactly one month later, on the new-moon day of the amânta Kârttika, i. e. on Sunday, 16th November, A. D. 738. But it may be objected, that the new-moon day of Kârttika, on which Professor Bühler supposes the scribe to have written the date, belonged all over India to the year 795 expired, and not to V. 794, either current or expired, and that therefore even the adoption of Professor Bühler's views would not remove all the difficulties of the date. And besides, from the wording of the date it seems quite certain that the writer distinctly desired to couple the eclipse with the newmoon day of Kirttika and with a Sunday; and I fail to perceive that the present date is at all similar, e. g. to that of the Morbi copper-plate, where an eclipse is spoken of in an early part of the document, while at the end of it a date is given on which that eclipse cannot possibly have taken place.
Sir A. Cunningham, in the Book of Indian Eras, p. 48, proposes that we should substitute Avina for the word Karttika of the date, an alteration by which the date would fall on the last day of southern V. 794 expired, Friday, 17th October, A. D. 738, the day of the solar eclipse, and that we should then assume the writer to have put down in the date the following Sunday, the 19th October, A. D. 738, because the day of the eclipse, which Sir A. Cunningham assumes to have been Saturday, was a very inauspicious day. Against this proposal it may be said, that the day of the eclipse in India was a Friday; that, even if it had been a
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