3G4 Rajendralala Mitra —On a Slcanda Gupta Inscription. [No. 4, 
which will be equal to 1120 grains, or about 2-| ounces, on every new moon 
day. 
The donor was a Brahmana versed in the four Vedas, and owner of 
an estate in the Doab of the Ganges and the Yamuna, which is indicated 
by its ancient name of Antarvedi. The locale of the township of Indrapura 
is, doubtless, the modern village of Indor, and the khera probably contains 
the ruins of the old temple of the sun. 
The date is by far the most important part of this record. It states 
in clear and unmistakable words “ the year one hundred and forty-six of 
the thriving and invincible kingdom of Skanda Gupta,” or, in other words, a 
Gupta era calculated in connexion with a thriving kingdom, and not from a 
reign. The compound word abhivardliamdna-vijaya-rajya-samvatsare cannot 
consistently be interpreted in any other way. Grammatically the phrase 
rajyasamvatsare can only mean “ in the year of the kingdom,” and to apply it 
to the reign it should he split into two separate words raj ye and samvatsare , 
hut the facsimile in this part is perfectly clear, and there is no trace in it of 
the vowel e , the mark of the locative, at the end of the first word. I called 
the attention of General Cunningham to this part of the record, and he 
assured me in reply that he could find no mark on the plate to indicate the 
vowel in question ; a rubbing of this part of the plate which he has sent me 
appears perfectly distinct and without any vowel-mark on the top of the word 
rctjya. Without the case-mark, the phrase, if applied to the reign on the 
strength of the epithet abhivardhamdna, “ flourishing,” being in the present 
tense, it would make the reign of the prince extend to a hundred and forty- 
six years, and I have no hesitation, therefore, in rejecting such an interpreta¬ 
tion as absurd. The word rajya in this part of the inscription has the letter 
^CT so engraved as to make it thereby appear like rdrdjya , but this is an 
obvious misformation of the compound consonant jya , due to the writer, or 
the engraver, of the record, and cannot be taken as in any way intended to 
alter the sense. The mark for e is in the record a hook on the top, and not 
a curved line behind as in modern Bengali, and one of the ^t’s cannot there¬ 
fore be taken for a vowel-mark. It is possible, however, that a small mark, 
like that for e , may be omitted by mistake, and mistakes of the kind not 
being unknown in copper-plate inscriptions, it is necessary to enquire whether 
such a mistake has here been committed or not. 
Assuming that there is no mistake in the part under notice, and seeing 
that the record does not give the name of the era in airy technical term, but 
clearly describes the year to be of Skanda Gupta’s kingdom, we cannot avoid 
the inference that the era intended is that of the sovereign named, calculated 
from the first year of his reign, and as distinct from those of Vikramaditya 
and S'akaditya. Further, that if we accept this to be the Gupta-kala of Abu 
Raihan, it does not begin either from the commencement of the reign of the 
