IN CHATT1SGHER. 515 



rough or corrected, and consequently between the translations, is in the 

 date. In the copies it occurs distinctly Samvdt 796; in the fac simile, the 

 writing is here defective, as if the stone were mutilated, and the figure 9 is 

 the only one that can be distinguished and this appears to be the leading 

 figure : if not, the numeral preceding it is more like 8 than 7, so that in 

 either case we have a variety of one or two centuries : the difficulty however 

 may be determined by reference to the Ratenpur inscription mentioned by 

 Mr."* Jenkins, the date of which is Samvat 915, and in which the name of 

 Prithivi Deo occurs. 



A comparison of this and the preceding inscription, with those which 

 remain to be decyphered in the province of Chattisgerh, seems calculated 

 to illustrate the political and religious condition of that part of India in 

 the 8th and 9th centuries : information that cannot but be acceptable in the 

 utter gloom which envelops almost the whole of Hindustan anterior to the 

 Mohammedan invasion. 



