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414
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1891.
tion should first be made for either the northern or the southern expired year, and the northern current year should be tried only when neither of the two other years has yielded a satisfactory equivalent of the original date.
A tithi of the dark fortnight never ends on the same weekday more than once in three con. secutive years for the same scheme of a lunar month, i.e., either the amánta scheme, or the púrnimánta scheme. But not infrequently such a tithi in the amanta month of one year may end on the same weekday on which it ended in the pirnimánta month of the same name of the preceding year. Accordingly, in verifying a date of the dark fortnight of the months Karttika to Phålguna, one should begin by calculating for the purnimanta month of the expired year. If thereby the desired weekday is found (as, e. g., in No. 83), the result may be regarded as final, and no further calculations are necessary. On the other hand, if the púrņimánta month yields no satisfactory result, the amanta month of the expired year should be tried (as, e. g., in No. 97); and here it should be remembered that, even when the proper weekday has thus been obtained, the result is not necessarily the only one possible, because the púrnimánta month of the current year may perhaps yield the same weekday (as, e. g., in No. 103). The verification of dates in dark fortnights of the months Chaitra to Asvina is more troublesome still, and it seems impossible to suggest any particular line of procedure beyond saying that the necessary calculations should here too always first be made for the expired (northern or southern) years. But in addition to what has been already stated concerning the weekdays of the púrnimánta month of one year and the amánta month of the same name of the following year, it may finally be mentioned here that sometimes the amánta,month of the northern current year, too, yields the same weekday for the end of a tithi as the purnimánta month of the same name of the southern expired year (as, e.g., in No. 143).
SANSKRIT AND OLD-KANARESE INSCRIPTIONS.
BY J. F. FLEET, BO.C.S., M.R.A.S., C.I.E. No. 196.- COPPER-PLATE GRANT OF NARENDRAM RIGABAJA-VIJAYADITYA II. I edit this inscription from the original plates, which belonged to Sir Walter Elliot, and are now, I understand, in the British Museum. I had them for examination in 1878. I have no information as to where they were obtained. The inscription has recently been edited by Dr. Hultzsch, in his South-Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 31 ff., No. 35; his version of the text, however, being given in Dêvanîgarî, I bave now to give my own reading in Roman characters.
The plates, of which the first and last are inscribed on one side only, are five in number, each measuring about 9" by 3". The edges of them were raised into rims; and the writing is mostly in a state of fairly good preservation: the surfaces of the plates are a good deal corroded, and in a few places they are quite eaten through by rust; but even there only a very few letters are entirely obliterated. The ring on which the plates are strung is about " thick and 41" in diameter; it has not been cut; but one end of it is loose in the socket, and advantage was evidently taken of this to detach the plates, in order to make the impressions which are in the Elliot collection; they were afterwards secured by a thickening of the ring at the same end. The seal on the ring is circular, about 21" in diameter. In relief on a countersunk sarface, it has, - across the centre, the legend ári-Tribhuvanamluía; in the upper part, the sun and moon; and in the lower part, a floral device. - The characters belong to the southern class of alphabets ; and are of the regular type of the period and part of the country to which the record belongs. The average size of the letters is about ". Many of them are filled in with a hard incrustation of rust; but in the others there are discernible, as usual, marks of the working of the engraver's tool. They do not show through on the reverse sides of the plates. — The language is Sanskțit; and, except in the quotation of four of the customary benedictive and imprecatory verses and in the use of a verse to give the name of the Dátaka, the whole record is in prose. - In respect of orthography, the only points that call for notice are
