370 
Rajendralala Mitra— On a SJcanda Gupta Inscription. [No. 4, 
minutes past eleven A. M. of the 3rd of February, 1875, assuming that the 
Christian era is used and the day begins with sunrise at 6 A. m.), his date 
would he given in these figures : 1874, 1, 2, 5, 9, 59, i. e. born on the lapse 
of fifty-nine seconds, nine minutes, five hours, two days, one month, and 
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four years of the Christian era. 
Logically, this is the most precise way of putting the figures, and to leave 
no room for doubt, the figures are usually preceded by the words s'aka 
nripateratitabdadayah, “ the S'aka king’s past year, &c.” That this prin¬ 
ciple has been adopted in the inscription is evident from the use of the two 
participles s'ante and prapanne together. The word rajye in the-inscrip- 
tion is in the locative case, showing the locale of the occurrence, whereas 
s'ante and prapanne are in the locative case-absolute according to the rule of 
Panini which says “ that which through its own verb governs another takes 
the locative case.” For determining the tense of such cases-absolute, the 
great logician Gadadhara lays down the following rule in his Dvitiyadi- 
vyutpatti-vdda : “ The relation of a verb in the seventh declension with an¬ 
other implies the same or some other time : Thereof the present participle 
affix ( krit ) implies the same time [i. e. the action of the two verbs takes 
place simultaneously). Where the participle affix is of the past tense, the 
time of the second verb is subsequent to that of the first; thus : on your 
going to the earth to conquer it, he attacked this city, &c. In the case of 
future participles the time of the first verb succeeds that of the other.”* 
Applying this rule to the two participles of the stanza under notice, we have 
s'ante preceding prapanne , and the “extinction” or close of the “ year” 
(varshe ) must take place before the “ arrival” ( prapanne ) “ of the month 
of Jaishthya.” If we take s'ante to refer to rajye the meaning would be “ the 
kingdom having become extinct and the month of Jaishthya arriving,” 
leaving the varshe grammatically unconnected with the rest, or serving 
as a locative, which is absurd. 
As the verse in question has proved a stumbling-block to many, 
and is of great importance in connexion with the history of the Guptas, 
I shall here reproduce Mr. Hall’s reading and translation modified according 
to the above remarks. 
XTIrT^IrTT^^rTT 
Cv 
■5JVJT c^T^T | 
^ <4 w ai?r a 
^ C\ 
