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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1891.
laukika year current. And one of the examples is, that, by patting down 'Saka 1547 and adding 17, the number of passed laukika years, we obtain 'Saka 1564, as the equivalent of the current laukika year 18. Here the writer distinetly intimates that in his time the laulika years were really regarded as current years; and, as the 'Saka year spoken of by him must in accordance with ordinary usage be an expired year, his rule is equivalent to our own, by which we take 46 as a constant and add the number of the current laukika year.
At the same time, I am not prepared to maintain a priori that, for a Hindu writer to quote a passed laukika year in a date, would be an utter impossibility. And in connection with this question I would draw attention to the following versele which occurs at the end of Kayyata's commentary on the Dévídataka :
Vasu-muni-gagan-Odad bi-sama-kale yato Kalds=tatha 10ko
dvåpanohabo varshe rachit-êyam Bhimagupta-nripe II The author here tells us that he composed his commentary under the king Bhimagupta, in Kaliyuga 4078 expired, tathd lóké dvåpanchasé varshé. Now Kaliyuga 4078 expired should correspond to a laukika year 53 carrent, and, assuming the statement contained in the verse to be correct, we cannot, it would seem, help assuming that the 52nd laukika year has really been quoted by the author as an expired year. Here, too, we want other old' dates to show us what the practice may have been in earlier times,
I have omitted from the above the difficult date of the first Baijnati Prasasti, which has been already commented on by Professor Bühler in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I. p. 103. In my opinion, the most important question to be anywered in connection with that date is, whether the first figure of the Saka year in the date of the second Prasasti is 7 or not. Sir A. Cunning. ham and Professor Bühler say that it is; and if they are right, the laukika year 80 of the date of the first Prasasti should, according to what we know at present of the Saptarshi era, no doubt correspond to 'Saka 726 expired. But the first of the bright half of Jyaishtha did not fall on a Sunday, the week-day given in the date, in Saka 726 expired, 1° nor in fact in any of tho eight years from Saka 722 to 729 expired.20 If, on the other hand, we were not restricted by the date of the second Prasasti to any particular century of the Saka era, I would say that the laukika year 80 of the first Prasasti must correspond to Saka 1126 expired, because, of all the expired 26th years of the centuries of the "Saka era from Saka 626 to Saka 1426, only the year 1126 yields the desired Sanday (the 2nd May, A.D. 1204). And I should not be prevented by anything in the contents of the inscription and the language of the author, or in the alphabet employed, from assigning the inscription to so late a period.
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI. BY E. SENART, MEMBRE DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE. Franslated by G. A. Grierson, B.C.S., and revised by the Authon.
(Continued from Vol. XIX. p. 102).
CHAPTER III.; continued.
THE DETACHED BOOK EDIOTS. 2. THE EDIOTS OF SAHASARAM, BUPNATE, AND BAIRAT. These inscriptions, without being identical, have too many points of analogy to allow of their interpretations being dealt with separately. Moreover, in certain difficult passages they throw light on one another, and hence their simultaneous consideration is specially necessary. It is well
18 This verse first became known to me through an extract from the work sent to me by Dr. Stein; it is published in the Kavyamala, in the note on the heading of the Vakroktipanchasika.
19 In Saka 726 expired the first of the bright half of Vaisakha did fall on a Sunday (the 14th April, A. D. 804), but there is no reason to assume that the writer put down a wrong month in the date.
w In Baka 780 expired the first of the bright half of Jysishtha was a Sunday, -the 80th April, A. D. 808.
