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OCTOBER, 1896.] ON THE DATES OF THE SAKA ERA IN INSCRIPTION
commencement of S. 726 expired and on the actual day of the date. The date No. 108 (ibid. p. 131) of 8. 730 expired and the year Sarvajit, corresponds to the 27th July A. D. 308. Here also the year Sarvajit, by the southern luni-solar system, cannot be connected with S. 730 expired; and by the mean-sign system Sarvajit was current at the commencemeat of S. 733 expired, but was no longer so on the day of the date. The date No 59 (ibid. p. 123), of S. 788 expired and the year Vyaya, corresponds to the 16th Jane A. D. 866. Here Vyaya, by the southern luni-solar system, would be S. 788 expired; and by the mean-sign system also Vyaya was current both at the commencement of S. 788 expired and on the actual day of the date. The date No. 7 (ibid. p. 114), of 8. 851 expired and the year Vikita, corresponds to the 17th January A. D. 930. And here, again, the year Vikrita, by the southern lani-solar system, cannot be combined with S. 851 expired at all, while by the mean-sign system Vikrita was current at the commencement of 9. 851 expired, bat was no longer so on the day of the date. These four regular dates, then, (the only regular dates with Jovian years before 8. 855, with details for verification,) have this in common that the given Jovian year, by the mean-sign system, was current at the commencement of the given Saka year. And taking this to be the characteristic feature of these dates, and regarding as accidental the facts that in one easer the southern lani-solar system would suit equally well, and that in two dates the given Jovian year by the mean-sign system was current also on the actual day of the date, I conclude that the system which was followed here is the so-called northera luni-solar system. And I am the more inclined to regard this conclusion as correct because I find that, with perhaps one exception, the same system is equally applicable to the other dates of my chronological list, before S. 851. The exception alluded to is that of the date No. 70 of S. 838 (Vol. XXIV. p. 187), in the ease of which the given year S. 838, as an expired year, ean be connected with the given Jovian year Dhâtri only by the southern luni-solar system,14
69
Of the dates subsequent to S. 851, the date No. 61 of 8. 867 expired (Vol. XXIII. p. 123) causes some difficulty. The inseription from which that date is taken,15 first, in lines 3 and 4, has the words 'the years passed from the time of the Saka (or Sakas) being eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the current year Plavanga'; and then, in line 45, it gives a specific date which commences with the words 'in the aforesaid current year,' and which corresponds to the 9th September A. D. 945 (in S. 867 expired). Here the connection of the year Plavanga with E. 867 expired would seem really to be owing to some mistake. By the southern luni-solar system S. 867 expired would be Viśvâvasu (nut Plavanga), while by the northern luni-solar system as well as by the strict mean-sign system the Jovian year that should have been quoted is Parabhava, which was current both at the commencement of S. 867 expired and on the 9th September A. D. 915, the day of the date. Now, as the year Plavanga, by the mean-sign system, commenced on the 17th October A. D. 945, in S. 867 expired, I formerly have assumed that the first statement of the inscription, in lines 3 and 4, refers to the time when the inscription was put up, in S. 867 expired, on or after the 17th October A. D. 945 when the year Plavaiga was really current, and that the donation, to which the second part of the date in line 45 ff. more immediately relates, was made some time before the inseription was put up, in the given year S. 867 expired, but before the commencement of the Jovian year Plavanga. But this explanation does not satisfy me because the use of the strict mean-sign system, the only
12 Here and in the following dates it makes no difference whether we take the Saka year to commence with the Mêsha-samkrinti or with Chaitra-sudi 1.
15 See the remarks on this date above.
14 If we were to take 838 as a current year, the northern luni-solar system would here also apply; but it seems to me more probable that, in accordance with the general rule, the year of the date is an expired year. This date would thus, in my opinion, furnish the earliest certain instance for the use of the southern luni-solar system. The date deserves notice also for the peculiar manner in which the Jovian year is described in it. In the two dates of F. 833 and S. 810, which immediately surround the date of S. 938, the system followed cannot be the southern lunisolar system.
15 See Ep. Ind. Vol. IV. p. 60 ff.
