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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA FURTHER NOTE ON DHULEV PLATE OF MAHARAJA 141 BHETTI, YEAR 73 While admitting that the interpretation of the grant proposed by Dr. Sircar with the emendation of mahārāja-bappadattiḥ into mahārāja-bappa-dattau is possible, I would point out that the interpretation offered by me is not impossible. It may be mentioned in this connection that Gaurisankar H. Ojha, who first noticed the record in the Annual Report of the Rajputana Museum for 1932-33, p. 2, also took Bappadatti as a personal name. Bappa is not always used in the sense of a father. It is sometimes noticed as a personal name also.[1] We have names ending in datta such as Vīrapurushadatta and Kumāravaradatta. There is therefore no reason why we should not find some others ending in datti as we have those ending in prasāda,[2] since datti and prasāda have the same meaning of a gift. So the predecessor of Mahārāja Bhētti may have borne the name of Bappadatti. The main importance of the inscription lies, however, not in the mention of the name of Mahārāja Bhētti’s father, but in that of the year 73 in which it is dated. Dr. Sircar has unnecessarily argued at length to prove what is not disputed, viz. that the year 73 is not the regnal year of Mahārāja Bhētti.[3] The question, however, is ‘ To what era does it belong ? ’ I hold that the use of pratipatti in rājya-pratipatti-varshē tri-saptatitamē[4] is significant. It seems to indicate that the seventy-third year was counted from the acquisition (or foundation) of the kingdom, of course, by an ancestor of Mahārāja Bhētti. It is noteworthy that no such expression is known to occur when the years of eras founded by imperial families are cited in the records of their feudatories.[5]
I wonder how Dr. Sircar believes that the Dhulēv grant was made in the first regnal year of Mahārāja Bhētti. Had that been the case, we would have had an expression like rājya-pratipatti-varshē prathamē and the word varshē would have been repeated with tri-saptatitamē even as the word saṁvatsarē has been repeated in the Mathura inscription of Chandragupta II cited by Dr. Sircar.[6] In the absence of such an expression we have no means to find out whether the grant was made by Mahārāja Bhētti in his first regnal year or some time afterwards. That the era to which the year 73 refers may have been founded by a king named Bhētti is a tentative conjecture suggested by its identity, shown by independent evidence, with the Bhāṭika era mentioned in two inscriptions found at Jaisalmer. It is supported by the general belief current in Rajputana that the Bhāṭika era was founded by a king named Bhaṭṭi or Bhaṭṭika[7] and there in no philological impossibility in equating this name with Bhētti.[8] Dr. Sircar’s suggestion that the Bhāṭika era was a later modification of the Hijrī era cannot be accepted ; for such an era could not have begun in 624 A. D. The Hijrī year was a lunar year of 354 days. It was shorter than the year of the Christian era and the luni-solar years of the different eras current in India. When the Hijrī era was started in 622 A.D., the difference between its year and the corresponding year of the Christian era was 621. This difference continued to diminish as the era advanced. In all Indian eras based on the Hijrī era such as the Suhūr and Faslī eras the difference between their dates _________________________________________________
[1] Cf. the names of the Guhila chief Bappa and of the officer Bappa in Bhandarkar’s List, Nos. 583 and 1362.
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