________________
312
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1896.
ported this view with very strong and convincing arguments drawn from the style which these sculptures exhibit. The only other known inscribed piece, the Hashtnagar Pedestal, of which Mr. Smith has published an excellent photo-etching in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (loc. cit. Plate x.), furnishes no clear and certain indications as to its age. Its inscription, a revised reading of which was first given by M. Senart and later by myself," is dated in the year 274 or 2849 of an unnamed era, and its letters are, as it happens, such as possess no characteristic paleographic peculiarities. The new inscription makes it certain, that the Charsada pedestal belongs to the second century A. D. Hence the determination of the age of the sculptures from Gandhara, made in accordance with the principles of archeology, is supported, in this case, by palæographical considerations.
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
BY PANDIT S. M. NATESA SASTRI, B.A., M.F.L.S.
No. 42. A Knock on the Head of Akiri.
In the town of Tanjore there once lived a famous musician named Mahasena. He was a great specialist in singing the great tune known as Akiri. But it vexed him very much that this tune which he so greatly admired and which he had so carefully cultivated should be thought so inauspicious in the morning. He had a great desire to prove to the world that the idea entertained by it towards Akiri was wrong. But, of course, he must first prove it to himself before his taking up the task of doing so to the public at large. But how to do it?
Mahâsêna argued thus with himself: "They say that if Akiri is sung in the morning, we cannot get any food during the whole day. All right. If I start with food in my hand, sing Akiri first and then eat that food, will it not amount to a proof that the belief held by the people about Akiri is wrong ?"
Thus thought he, and resolved to put the idea into execution. But he could not sing as he proposed in the town, for his brother musicians and others who would recognize the tune would not permit it. So he resolved to go outside the town to some respectable distance and away from the public notice, and there put his resolution to the test. He started with food tied up in his upper cloth, and left home very early in the morning, five ghatikás before sunrise. Just at dawn he reached the banks of the river Vettar, whose bed was dry, as the summer season had almost set in. He walked up the bed a little distance, and chose a fine, sandy and secluded spot to sit down on and sing Akiri. The place itself, the fresh morning, the luxuriant bamboo groves on either sido the river, the thousand and one birds which had already commenced their songs to greet the rising lord of the day all these fired the ambition of Mahâsêna to begin the Ahiri at once, and do fall justice in the clear morning to the tune he had so specially cultivated. He sat down. Near him a bamboo was hanging down, and not to spoil the food by placing it on the bare sand he tied the bundle to the tip of a branch of the hanging bamboo and commenced his favourite Akiri. A person who has specially cultivated a certain tune generally takes ten or twelve ghatikas' time to do full justice to it,3 and our hero, shaded by the extensive shadow of the bamboos behind, did not perceive the heat of
Notes d'Epigraphie Indienne, III. p. 16 f.
1 Indian Antiquary, Vol. XX. p. 894. I regret that, when writing this note, I had overlooked M. Senart's remarks on this inscription. He certainly first recognised that Sir A. Cunningham's emborasmasa masasa is erroneous and that the month is the Indian Praushthapada.
With Sir A. Cunningham and Mr. Smith I read the figure for 200 with certainty on the photo-etching, and I think that 70 is more probably 80.
1 This is the name of a tune in South-Indian music. The time for singing it is generally between 8 p. m. and 4 s. m., and it is the tune most adapted for giving vent to mournful feelings. It is moet melodious, but it ia considered very inauspicious to sing it after six in the morning, for there is also a belief among the musicians of Southern India that he who sings Akiri at six will go without food during the day.
[Have we not here a key to the endlessness of native musical performances ?-ED.]
