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

THE GUPTA INSCRIPTIONS; INTRODUCTION. 59

tion. And, without attempting any full discussion of the matter here, where it would be out of
place, I will only bring forward a few points to shew that, at any rate, Sir E. Clive Bayley's
interpretation of the dates is quite untenable. Of the coins in question, those that have the
clearest dates on them (id. Plate vii. Nos. 24 to 27), belong to some unnamed king. They
are not attributed to 'Syalapati;' but are considered to be rather more recent. It is admit-
ted, however, that they belong to the same series; and I take them first, because they are
so very clear. If we examine them with the help of Sir E. Clive Bayley's Table of
Numerals (id. Plate vii.), it is evident at once that No. 24 reads, not "802 Gu," but sim-
ply "804," with nothing after it; and that Nos. 25, 26, and 27 read, not "812 Gu," but
simply "814," again with nothing after it; the figures being, in fact, absolutely identical
with those which Sir E. Clive Bayley himself read as simply "814" on Nos. 19 to 23, 29
to 31, and 34. In these instances, the supposed Gu is nothing but the sign that makes
the difference in these numerals between a 2 and a 4. And Sir E. Clive Bayley's reading
further involves the peculiar anomaly that the figures have to be read in one direction,
from the rim of the coin, and the supposed Gu in the opposite direction, from the inside of
the coin; which results in the curious arrangement of "802 n⅁" and "812 n⅁." We have
here to note that Sir E. Clive Bayley reported (id. p. 145 f.) that Mr. Thomas, reading the
signs that were supposed to mean Gu, Gup, and Gupta, in the opposite way to that in which
he himself read them, read the whole date in one direction, from the inside of the coins,
and interpreted all the figures as giving only one uniform and conventional date, viz. "Gu
617," denoting the initial date of Sâmanta's dynasty according to the Gupta era. Allowing
for the possibility of the first sign being capable of meaning Gu, this way of interpreting the
figures seems to be equally well borne out by Sir E. Clive Bayley's Table. But the first sign
cannot mean Gu, and does not mean Gu. And a reference to the Table will shew imme-
diately that the figures have to be read, as Sir E. Clive Bayley read them, from the rims
of the coins; and that the dates are in reality nothing but 804 and 814, as I have pointed
out above. Of the coins of 'Syalapati' himself (Plate i. Nos. 3 to 5, and 7 to 10), No. 7
is read as "707," and Nos. 8, 9, and 10 as "727," without any supposed reference at all
to the Gupta era; and these readings are in accordance with the Table of Numerals, if the
dates are read from the rim of the coins, like the dates of Nos. 19 to 27, 29 to 31, and 34,
referred to above. On the other hand, if we might read the figures on these seven coins
from the inside, there appears no particular objection to interpreting them as respectively
"808" and "868." There remain Nos. 3, 4, and 5, which are read respectively as
"Gupta" with two doubtful figures, "98 Gu," and "99 Gu;" meaning (6)98 and (6)99
on the principle of "omitted hundreds." And these, unfortunately, are not so easy
to deal with; since,—though the signs that are supposed to mean Gupta must be in reality
numerals of some kind or another,—there is nothing in Sir E. Clive Bayley's Table, and
I can obtain nothing elsewhere, to explain their value as numerals. But, in attempting to
find a proper reading of them, we must in the first place notice that the sign which,