398 Notes on the preceding Inscription. [July, 



A. D. 961 [or if corrected according to the right astronomical position with 

 respect to the equinoxes, as fixed afterwards by the Gregorian calendar, 

 Thursday the 4th of June, 961.] To the other abbreviations beside ufg[, 

 some of which are worn and indistinct, I am unable to assign any meaning. 

 XLVIII. — This verse, the last of the 15 Srag-dhara stanzas, (which con- 

 stitute about half of the poetical part of the inscription,) is extremely valu- 

 able for fixing by a definite circumlocution the number of the year, 1018, and 

 thus securing from all suspicion of mistake the somewhat worn numbers 

 of the figured date that preceded. But here its dose coincidence ceases : 

 for while the prose date is the thirteenth of the former half of Ashadha, which 

 must have been either the Thursday aforesaid, or the Friday next fol- 

 lowing, — that of the verse is Monday, the third Tithi or lunar day in 

 the former half of some month not named : (for though the greater 

 part of the word SIT^T is erased, it were impossible to read ^fai^stf or any 

 other ordinal numeral in its stead.) Now, though one condition stated 

 in the verse appears incompatible with this lunar month being Ashadha, 

 viz. the Sun's having entered or at least approached the sign Leo, which 

 it could not enter till long after the fourth quarter of that moon, — I 

 still think that the 3rd of the 1st quarter of the Ashadha moon, which 

 fell on a Monday, is the date here intended ; for by placing it later 

 we should not only fall on a different day of the week, but admit 

 the absurdity of making the commencement of the work, as stated in 

 the prose and in verse XLVII., prior to the divine command for undertak- 

 ing it: whereas now the alleged command precedes the commencement of 

 the work by the probable interval of ten days, viz. from the 3rd to the 

 13th of Ashadha, or from Monday the 20th of May O. S. A. D. 961, to thfr 

 Thursday week following. 



[It should be remarked that the word ipi, on which the above difficulty 

 turns, is very indistinct on the stone, and indeed more resembles ?f)r or tt^ 

 which are unintelligible : though the compound word V^fifOVff " in the* 

 sign of Leo," is not to be mistaken.] 



Here begins the enumeration of donors and benefactors to the temple; 

 preceded by a date which marks the conclusion of the work, as the former 

 marked its commencement. Pursuing the computation, it is found that 

 the first moon of the Samvat year 1030 preceded the civil year by nearly 

 half a month, commencing on Friday the 7th of March, O. S., A. D. 973, 

 while its full moon (the Paschal full moon of the Christian year) fell 

 very early on Saturday the 22ud of March : and that of the third moon 

 Ashadha, which is the close of its 15th lunar day here specified, falling con- 

 sequently just 59 days after, that lunar day itself will coincide with Monday 

 the 19th of May, O. S. (or May 24th according to the Gregorian calendar) 

 the same year*. 



* To give a notion of this, which is the date of the inscription itself, from contempo- 

 rary events ia the West, — it may not be without interest to observe, that it is later by 

 12 days than the death of the Emperor Otho I., the greatest man on the continent of 

 Europe since Charlemagne, and in Sismondi's judgment, his superior in many re- 

 spects ; whose memorable conquest of Italy occurred at the former date, viz. A. D. 961, 



