गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

98 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.

examination at all; and now, even the second plate also, the published one, has been mis-
laid and is not forthcoming. And I have to point out that, in the second part of the
verse, Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar read Gauptê, instead of Gôptê; and translated "five
hundred and eighty-five years of the Guptas having elapsed." The lithograph, however,
shews distinctly that the original has Gôptê; and it is only by the correction of ô into au
that the name of the Guptas can be introduced into the passage.¹ But, even then, the
adjective Gauptê occupies an irregularly detached place, which any skilful composer
would have avoided, from the noun, śata-pañchakê, which it qualifies. While, on the
other hand, I have shewn, in my remarks on the nomenclature of the era, at page 19 ff. above,
that we have no reason at all to look for the use of such an adjective as Gaupta,
'belonging to the Guptas;' and, if we maintain the original reading of Gôptê, we have a
locative case, which we have every reason to expect in immediate connection with the
verb dadau, "he gave," and which will then give us the name of the village at which the
grant was made. And, until the original first plate of the grant is produced, to prove that
Gôpta was not the name of the village,² or otherwise to explain the passage, this is the
reading and interpretation that I adopt.
In accordance, however, with the palæography of the grant, I see no reason for
referring the date to any except the Gupta-Valabhî era; irrespective of the question
whether the era is mentioned by name, or not. This record, therefore, gives us, for
calculation, an eclipse of the sun, which took place on some unspecified date in Gupta-
Saṁvat 586 current, as the original text specifies that the year 585 had expired. And,
on the analogy of the Verâwal inscription of Valabhî-Saṁvat 945, the eclipse should be
found in Gupta-Saṁvat 586 + 242 = Śaka-Saṁvat 828 current, somewhere between ³
the 10th March, A.D. 905, and the 27th February, A.D. 906. Also, it should,
presumably, be visible at the place at which the grant was made on the occasion of it.
And, though there is nothing, in the existing remnant of the record, to indicate
with certainty the exact locality to which it belongs, still there is nothing against the
supposition that it really belongs to Môrbi itself, or to that neighbourhood. We have,
therefore, to look for a solar eclipse, occurring in Śaka-Saṁvat 828 current, and visible
at Môrbi, or near that town, in the north of Kâṭhiâwâḍ.

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¹ The mistake of ô for au does occur in the word svavbhânô, for svarbbhânau, in line 3 of the
grant. But in line 9, in the word paurvva, the au is formed quite correctly and completely.
² We might easily find its present representative in the modern name of Gôp, which occurs in
the case of a village, in Kâṭhiâwâḍ, about seventy-five miles south-west of Môrbi; twenty-five miles
south of Nawânagar or Jâmnagar; and fifty miles east of Dhiniki, where there was found the copper-
plate grant of Jâikadêva, which purports to be dated in Vikrama-Saṁvat 794 (see page 62 above,
note 1.)
³ Of course, as it could only take place at a new-moon conjunction, it did not occur on the
given solar day for the writing of the charter.—The limits within which we must look for it, are the
first and the last days of Śaka-Saṁvat 828 current, as given in Indian Eras, p. 167.