South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

In the Gupta year 199, corresponding to the expired year 3619 of the Kaliyuga, a month by the rules of mean intercalation would have had to be intercalated before the month Kârttika. Judging from other dates, I consider it highly probable that in the period to which our date belongs the rules of mean intercalation were observed, and that moreover a month, by those rules intercalated before the proper Kârttika, would have received its name from the preceding month Âśvina. Assuming this to have been actually the case, the Gupta year 199 would have contained only one month called Kârttika, and the month Kârttika which is put down in the date would be the ordinary Kârttika of our Tables. But the possibility is not excluded that the intercalated month might have been called Kârttika too, and in that case the term Kârttika of the date might be taken to denote either the first Kârttika (which would be the month Âśvina of our Tables) or the second Kârttika (i.e. the ordinary Kârttika of the Tables).

At first sight, another difficulty is presented by the circumstance that in line 3 of our record the tithi of the date is simply described as ‘ the tenth tithi of the month Kârttika ’ (Kârttika-mâsa-daśamî), without any indication as to which lunar fortnight the tithi must have belonged to. But this difficulty, in my opinion, is removed by the fact that at the end of the record, where the date is repeated in figures, the same tithi is described by the expression Kârttika-di 10. In the Khôh plates of Saṁkshôbha of the Gupta year 209 (Gupta Inscr. p. 114) we find the tithi described, in lines 2 and 3, as Chaitramâsa-śuklapaksha-trayôdaśî, and in line 24 as Chaitra-di 28 ; and in the Majhgawâṁ plates of Hastin of the Gupta year 191 (ibid. p. 107), in line 2 as Mâghamâsa-bahulapaksha-tṛitîyâ, and in line 20 as Mâgha-di 3. The manner in which the Khôh plates are dated has been taken to prove that the month Chaitra of those plates was the pûrṇimânta Chaitra ; and the dates of both records indicate that it was the custom to quote, when a date was repeated in figures, the number of tithi elapsed since the commencement of the month, irrespectively of the lunar fortnights. Applying this to the date under discussion, we conclude from the statement Kârttika-di 10 that since the commencement of the pûrṇimânta Kârttika there had elapsed 10 tithi, or, in other words, that the tenth tithi of the month Kârttika, quoted in line 3, was the 10th tithi of the first or dark half of the pûrṇimânta Kârttika (the Kârttikamâsa-bahulapaksha-daśamî).

From what has been stated above, it follows that the tithi of our date is the 10th tithi of the dark half of, probably, the pûrṇimânta Kârttika of our Tables, but that possibly it may be the 10th tithi of the dark half of the pûrṇimânta Âśvina of the Tables. On the first alternative the date would correspond to Monday, the 15th October A.D. 518, when the 10th tithi of the dark half of the pûrṇimânta Kârttika ended 8 h. 26 m. after mean sunrise ; on the second alternative to Saturday, the 15th September A.D. 518, when the 10th tithi of the dark half of the pûrṇimânta Âśvina (i.e. possibly, the first pûrṇimânta Kârttika) ended 13 h. 36 m. after mean sunrise. It will be shown now that, in either case, the Jupiter’s year in which the date fell was a Mahâ-Mârgaśîrsha year, as required by the wording of the original date.

The late Mr. S. B. Dikshit has fully explained that a Mahâ-Mârgaśîrsha^[1] year occurs when Jupiter at his heliacal rising (i.e. his first appearance in the morning after his conjunction with the sun) is in either of the nakshatras Mṛigaśiras and Ârdrâ, i.e., when at his heliacal rising his true geocentric place (or true longitude), according to the equal space system, is between 53º 20ʹ and 80º, according to the Brahma-siddhânta between 52º 42ʹ 20″ and 72º 28ʹ 12·5″, and according to Garga between 53º 20ʹ and 73º 20ʹ. Now in the time immediately preceding the 15th September (and the 15th October) A.D. 518 Jupiter was in conjunction with the sun at mean sunrise of the 11th May A.D. 518, when his own true longitude was 51º 3ʹ, and that of the
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^[1] For the similar years, which have been hitherto found in five inscriptions, see especially the Table in Dr. Fleet’s Gupta Inscr., Introduction, p. 105.