South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

Râchamalla of the Chikmagaḷûr record. And, as has been shewn by me in Vol. VI. above, p. 69, it is a record of Nîtimârga-Ereyappa.

And as regards the Hirê-Bâsûr inscription (2), in the first place, the extant remnant of its date may be understood to mean Śaka-Saṁvat 922 (expired), in A.D. 1000, quite as well as Ś.-S. 822 (expired), in A.D. 900.^[1] And in the second place, its date cannot be A.D. 899 or 900 ; because there was then ruling, not a Nîtimârga, but Satyavâkya-Bûtuga I. : see my remarks in Vol. VI. above, p. 68 f., and my Table, ibid. p. 59. It is highly probable that the Hirê-Bâsûr inscription really is another record of the Nîtimârga-Râchamalla of the Chikmagaḷûr record ; but, if so, then its date is certainly Ś.-S. 922 expired, in A.D. 1000.

There remains the Hirêmagaḷûr inscription (3), the published text of which gives a Nîti-[mârga], with the biruda of Jayadutta[raṁga]. It is quite possible that this is another record of the Nîtimârga-Râchamalla of the Chikmagaḷûr inscription. But that point depends a good deal upon whether the biruda which has been read in it as Jayadutta[raṁga] should rather be read Jayadaṅka[kâra], or whether a biruda in an inscription at Elkûru in the Mysore district (Ep. Carn. Vol. IV., Ch. 10 ; and see note 4 on page 56 below), which has been presented to us as Jayadaṅkakâra, should rather be read Jayaduttaraṁga. And, in any case, this Hirêmagaḷûr undated record does not help us to arrive at a date for the Chikmagaḷûr record.

In coming now to my own determination of the real period of this Chikmagaḷûr inscription, I may premise that this is not the first occasion on which I have had the matter under consideration. In August, 1899, Mr. Rice sent me the texts of the dates of this inscription, and of the spurious Jâvaḷi copper-plate record (Ep. Carn. Vol. VI., Mg. 36) which purports to register a grant made by Śrîpurusha-(Muttarasa) in his twenty-fifth regnal year, on a specified occasion in the month Vaiśâkha, Śaka-Saṁvat 672 expired. I had not then received the photograph of the Chikmagaḷûr inscription. All that I could say at the time, was, that the inscription might be a record of the Rachcha-Gaṅga who ruled between Bûtuga II. and Mârasiṁha II.; that is to say, between A.D. 949-50 and 963-64 as matters then stood, but, as we know now (see Vol. VI. above, pp. 59, 71), between A.D. 953 and 963-64. Disregarding the nakshatra, and calculating for the full-moon, I found that the only possible result, for that period, is Monday, 5th November, A.D. 960, on which day the full-moon tithi, of the second Kârttika if we take Kârttika itself as the intercalary month, or of the only Kârttika if we take Bhâdrapada as the intercalary month, began at about 4 hrs. 41 min. after mean sunrise (for Ujjain). This result was not altogether satisfactory, inasmuch as there was no apparent reason why the tithi should have been used with the day upon which it began. But I communicated the result, such as it was, to Mr. Rice, in September, 1899, and sent him at the same time the result for the Jâvaḷi date, the details of which are quite correct for Monday, 20th April, A.D. 750. And this leads me into a short digression, for which I must be excused. Mr. Rice has not mentioned the suggestion that I then made about the Chikmagaḷûr record ; which, however, is not a matter of any importance. But he has quoted my result for the Jâvaḷi date, in Ep. Carn. Vol. VI. Introd. p. 7, and note 1. It is not, however, to be thought,─ though it might easily be so imagined from the way in which the matter is there put,─ that the opinion is mine, that the date of Śrîpurusha-Muttarasa is now fixed by this result of my own calculations (see loc. cit. p. 29, line 23 f.), or that “ this confirmation of an exact date is important ” (loc. cit. p. 7, line 5 f.). There are the facts, that, amidst all the mass of information about Mysore which we have now available in Vols. III. to VII. And XI. of Mr. Rice’s Epigraphia Carnatica, and in his books entitled Mysore Inscriptions, Coorg Inscriptions, and Inscriptions at Śravaṇa-Beḷgoḷa, the earliest instance that is forthcoming, of the use of the Śaka era in Western Gaṅga records the authenticity of which is or seems to be
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^[1] It could equally well mean Śaka-Saṁvat 722 (expired), in A.D. 800, but for a point, stated by me on page 55 below, about the period of the adoption of the Śaka era in the Western Gaṅga records.