1864.] On a Land- Grant of Ilahencfoapala Deva of Kanauj. 328 



of some now unknown words the dates would read 38 and 40, 45 or 

 48 as we accepted the second figure of the Stacy plate to be a cypher 

 a 5, or an 8, giving an interval of 2, 7 or 10 years between Mahendra 

 and Vinayaka. I annex facsimiles of the two dates,' in order that 

 others may be enabled to solve them more successfully than I have 

 been able to do, 



The word samvatsara means simply a year and not an era, it is 

 impossible therefore to ascertain to what particular era allusion has 

 been made by the two plates. Had the era of Vikrama been meant, 

 the word samvat would have been preferred ; besides the character 

 of the plates is too modern to entitle them to a place in the 4th 

 century of Vikrama. If the Baliabhi samvat be assumed the date of 

 the Dighwa document would be carried back to (318 + 389 = 707) 

 the beginning of the 8th century, which would lead to the anachronism 

 of making Devas'akti and his successor contemporaries of Harshavar- 

 dhana and co-sovereigns in Kanauj in the beginning of the 8th century ; 

 even if it could be shewn that the Baliabhi samvat had extended so 

 far to the north-east of Guzerat— the place of its origin— as Kanauj. 

 Again, if the Harsha era be assumed, — a very likely era being a 

 purely Kanauj one — the date of Mahendra would be brought to the 

 end of the 10th century, when Kanauj was for certain under the 

 Tomaras. Under these circumstances I am compelled to take the 

 era of the records to be a local or family one, the zero of which it is 

 impossible now to determine. This does not prevent us, however, from 

 ascertaining the probable period when the princes under notice flourish- 

 ed in India. Govindaraja, sovereign of Rashtrakiita in the south 

 Marhatta country, in a donative inscription dated S'aka 730 = A. D. 

 808, states that his father Paura had once entered Marwar at the 

 head of a hostile army, and " conquered Vatsaraja, who had been 

 intoxicated with the wealth of the king of Gauda, which he had 

 seized." This Vatsaraja was, we suppose, the second potentate of 

 our list and not a prince of Marwar which he is nowhere said to have 

 been, though he was defeated in that country. There is ample testi- 

 mony to shew that Marwar and a good part of Malwa was, at the 

 end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th centuries, under the sove- 

 reignty of the Kanaujites, and it is more probable that a Kanauj 

 king, in the zenith of his power, should extend his arms as far as 

 Gauda on the one side and Malwa on the other, than that a prince 



