322 On a Land- Grant of Mafiendrapala Deva of Kanauj. [No. 3 



down to Vinayakapala, brother and successor of Bhoja Deva who was 

 the immediate heir of Mahendra. 



The subject of the grant in the Stacy plate is the village of Tik- 

 karika, in the district of Benares, that of the Dighwa record the village 

 of Pamayaka, in the subdivision of Talayika, of the district of Sravasti. 

 The date of the Dighwa grant is " the 7th of the waxing moon in 

 the month of Magha, Samvatsara 389," the last figure being open to 

 question. In my first reading of the Stacy plate I took its date to 

 be " the 6th day of the dark half of the moon in the solar month of 

 Plialguna Samvatsara 65;" the word "solar" being deduced from 

 an indistinct letter which I took for m " light" or the " sun." In the 

 redecipherment* of the record published in the XXXI. Vol. of this 

 Journal (p. 15) Professor P. E. Hall has dismissed the figures by 

 stating that after the word Samvatsara " follow two unrecognized 

 numerals, denoting a dynastic year, and an indistinct compound cha- 

 racter of unknown significance. Farther on the day of the semiluna- 

 tion is expressed by a single numeral It is the same as the first of 

 the two just spoken of." On re-examining the document with the 

 light of the Dighwa plate, I feel disposed to take the first figure for 

 an ancient 4, being somewhat similar to the same figure in the West- 

 ern caves and on coins. The second is an imperfect or partially 

 effaced cypher, or possibly an 8, but in that case very unlike the same 

 figure in the Dighwa plate ; and the indistinct letter after it, which 

 looks very much like a bhra and no figure, having the perpendicular 

 line of the long vowel after it, a 9. The figure for the semilunation, being 

 the counterpart of the first figure of the year, must of course be read 

 as 4, making the date " the 4th of the wane in the month of Phalgu- 

 na, Samvatsara 409." This would bring the record 19 years after the 

 Dighwa plate, which would be in no way too much for the latter 

 portion of the reign of Mahendrapala, the whole of that of Bhoja and 

 the beginning of that of Vinayakapala. The last figures, however, 

 being in both the documents very doubtful if we take them for initials 



* It is remarkable that in this so-called " redecypherment" the only emenda- 

 tion of any value is the relationship of Vinayaka Pal a to Mahendra. The learned 

 Professor makes him a son, whereas my reading made him a grandson. For the 

 rest the new reading adds little to our knowledge of the document beyond 

 the fact of there being some obvious inaccuracies of spelling in the original 

 which in my reading I had corrected without note, and a few mis-prints in my 

 transcript which had escaped my eyes. The " redecypherment" did not, even in 

 the opinion of the Professor., render a re-translation necessary. 



