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The Indian Analyst
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North Indian Inscriptions |
THE KṚITA ERA of ways. Thus, to take the Vikrama era itself into consideration in this connection, we find that there are some years which pertain to the Kārttikādi, and some to the Chaitrādi system of calculation and that both kinds of years were used over the same tract of country.1 Again, “in early times the pūrṇimānta scheme of the lunar months was more commonly followed in connection with the Vikrama era than the amānta scheme, that afterwards the amānta scheme has been gaining considerably on the pūrṇimānta scheme, and that a change in favour of a more general employment of the pūrṇimānta scheme has again taken place in quite modern times.”2 If this is the state of things in regard to the Vikrama era, the expression Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti cannot but point to the conclusion that the Mālava people or rather the Mālava country had its own peculiar system of recknoning the date. What was then the name of the Saṁvat year at that early period? This question we have now to tackle. In 1913 a third inscription3 was found at Mandasōr. The date of this record is set forth in the verse: .................Śrīr-mMālava-gaṇ-āmnātē prāśastē Kṛita-saṁjñitē /
In this verse there are two expressions which are worthy of consideration. The first is Mālava-gaṇ-āmnātē, which doubtless corresponds to Mālavānāṁ gaṇa-sthityā and Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti-vaśāt of the other two Mandasōr inscriptions. The natural sense of āmnāya, as given e.g. in the Amarakōśa, is sampradāya (=traditional usage).4 The phrase must therefore mean “traditionally handed down in the Mālava country.” The other two similar phrases are exactly in consonance with this. The word gaṇa is common to the three expressions and must be taken to signify ‘computation, calculation’, as has been already pointed out. The word sthiti of the other Mandasōr inscriptions is equivalent to āmnāta of the Mandasōr inscription, because the St. Petersburg Dictionary gives ‘a settled rule or usage’ as one of the senses of sthiti, and even quotes Sanskrit texts in support of this meaning. No reasonable doubt can thus be entertained as to Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti being practically identical with Mālava-gaṇ-āmnāta. So, the question arises: what was the name of this era? The reply is furnished by the second expression in the verse cited above, namely, Kṛita-saṁjñitē, which qualifies the phrase expressing the date. As the word saṁjñitē shows, the year 461, the date of the inscription, is itself intended to be called Kṛita. But, as indicated by Śrīr-Mālava-gaṇ-āmnātē, the date is clearly a year of the Vikrama era. Obviously, therefore, Kṛita appears to be the name of the years of this era. There were at least two instances from epigraphy of the use of Kṛita in this sense before the discovery of the third Mandasōr epigraph, but its real significance was not understood, as we have remarked at the outset. They are the Bijayagaḍh stone pillar inscription of Vishṇuvardhana, and the Gaṅgdhār stone inscription of Viśvavardhana referred to above. In the first, the date is specified as follows: Kṛitēshu chaturshu varsha-śatēshv=ashṭaviṁśēshu 400 20 8, etc. The second sets forth the date in the verse: Yātēshu chaturshu Kṛitēshu śatēshu saumyē=shṭāśīti-sōttara-padēshv=iha vatsa[rēshu]. As pointed out above, J. F. Fleet, who has edited both these records, translates the word Kṛitēshu by “fully complete”, but admits that it involves a straining. Besides, with this meaning, the word is made redundant by yātēshu, which is used along with it in the second inscription. But now that we know that Kṛita was the name of Vikrama Saṁvat, the occurrence of the term in the Bijayagaḍh and Gaṅgdhār records becomes perfectly clear and intelligible. Many inscriptions have been found since the discovery of the third Mandasōr record,
where the name of the era specified is Kṛita. One of these was brought to light at Nagarī, 1 Ind. Ant., Vol. XX, p. 400.
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