486 Journal of the Adatic Society of Bengal. [July, 1907, 



Bagumra plates are desciibed in Ind. Antiq. xii. (p. 179) as re- 

 sembling in execution the Samangad plates of S. 675 very closely, 

 while in some respects they are very like the Dhiniki plates. 



The Gujarat plates of this date have the date in figures (Table 

 I (i)) which stand out in the impression with remarkable clear- 

 ness. The plate seems to have been polished in the space occu- 

 pied by the figures which appear to be engraved with such bold- 

 ness that the impression is given that they have been ' touched 

 up. ' The connection betw^een this date and the Torkhede dat« 



will be noted upon below. 



(16) This Kanheri inscription of S. 799 is described along 

 with No. 11, in Ind. Antiq. xiii. (p. 133f.). No plates are given. 

 See row iii. of Biihler's Table. 



(17) Dr. Mitra published a portion of the Peheva inscrip- 

 tion of H. 276 or A.D. 882 (Ind. Antiq. xv.. 90) and according to Dr. 

 Fleet ( Joum. Asiatic Soc.Bengal, xxxi., 407), " In referring to this, 

 he rectified his former version of the date and recorded that it was 

 unmistakably Samvat 279, which, after considering and rejecting 

 the Vikrama, Valabhi, Sena and Sivasimha areas, he came to the 

 conclusion must be referred to some unknown local or family era 

 .... In 1864 General Cunningham took up the subject. In 

 the first place, working on the facsimile that had been published 

 by Dr. Rajendra Lai Mitra as Samvat 216, which, if referred, as 

 he suggested it should be, to the era of Harsha-vardhana of 

 Kanauj, would give A.D. 823 ; but with the possibility of the 

 correct reading being 276 or A.D. 883 which would identify this 

 Bhoja inscription with his namesake of Gwalior . • * . Subse- 

 quently he announced that the real reading was Samvat 276." 



This individual examination of the inscriptions practically 

 eliminates all but two, viz.^ the Torkhede plates of S. 735 (A.D. 

 813) and the Gujarat plates of S. 789 (A.D. 867). Let us now 

 see to what result a comparison of the symbols used in the 

 different inscriptions leads. 



In Table I are shown, besides those examples quoted above, 

 all those of the tenth century that I have been able to collect. 

 Of the examples of the special period under consideration (z.e., 

 up to 900 A.D.) all except/ and i are copied from lithographs, 

 and it must be borne in mind that these lithographs are only 

 approximately correct copies of the originals. When a symbol 

 was not understood it would naturally be made to approximate to 

 some symbol familiar to the interpreter ; and in all the cases 

 under discussion the interpreter argued from the following false 

 premiss — that the decimal (i.e., the place-value) notation was in 

 common use in India in these early times. The validity of this 

 premiss has been mildly questioned on one or two occasions, where- 

 upon the sceptic was confronted with the above array of epigra- 

 phical examples. 



A superficial examination of Table I leads one to 

 suspect that (a), (6), (c), (e), (gr), (/) are out of place ; 

 the symbol for eigJit in example {i) is unique and example 

 (/) appears to be a century before its time.. Compare these facts 



