44 Notes on the Eran Inscriptions. [No. 1, 
rest, the word dala signifies “ petal” as well as “leaf.” I am told 
that “it is only on the leaf of the lotus that water is tremulous, and 
not on its petals.” Indeed! 
In preceding volumes of this Journal,* I have stated that Babi 
Rajendralal Mitra has interpolated an inscription, and thereby created 
a new king; and this myth, Mahendrapdla II., has been adopted asa 
reality, in Professor Lassen’s Indian Antiquities.+ 
Your obedient servant, 
F. E. Hau. 
King’s College, London, Nov. 9, 1863. 
P.S. Colonel Cunningham, in his Archeological Survey Report, 
published in your Journal for this year, writing of the year in which 
the inscription naming Skandagupta is dated, says: ‘‘ Professor Hall, 
on the authority of Baptii Deva Sastri, the learned astronomer of the 
Benares College, prefers the era of Vikramaditya.” I have never 
expressed any such preference ; and I have never appealed, on the 
subject, to Pandit Bapt Deva. Colonel Cunningham was thinking of 
the inscription of Budhagupta. I have explicitly said: “ Not to my 
knowledge, is there one particle of proof that Kuméragupta preceded 
Budhagupta, or that Skandagupta did, whether immediately, or after 
an interval.’’{ The year 141 in the inscription that speaks of Skanda- 
gupta I have not suggested to place either before or after Budha- 
gupta’s year 165. 
By the by, the Udayagiri inscription is not dated in S’ravana, as 
according to Colonel Cunningham’s decipherment, but in A’shadha, 
and very distinctly. I read the word on the spot in the spring of last 
year. 
* 1861, p. 199; 1862, pp. 5 and 15. 
+ Indische Alterthumskunde, Vol. II1., pp. 827 and 1169. 
{t Jowrnal As, Soc. Beng., 1861, p. 388. 

