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duct of Madhu's sons. The meeting was held and the verdict of that meeting was that the sons of Madhu Maitra by his first wife were guilty of disregarding and illtreating their father.

Thereupon Dhain Bagchi, together with Madhu Maitra, as the head of the society declared that henceforth the sons of Madhu Maitra by his first wife would no longer be classed among the Kulins. They would be Kap and their position in the society would be an intermediate one between the Kulins and the Crotriyas. They also declared that henceforth should any Kulin touch their water or even come in contact whatsoever with them, he also would be a Kap. But this latter declaration was afterwards modified by Raja Kamsa Narayana Ray, of Tahirpore, who ruled that a Kulin should not lose his Kulinship unless be married the daughter of a Kap or allow his daughter to marry a Kap. This rule is still in existence.

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Chronology of the Eastern Ganga kings of Orissa.-By BABU MONMOHAN CHAKRAVARTI, M.A., B.L., M.R.A.S., Deputy Magistrate, Bengal.

dates.

[Read August, 1903.]

These kings belong to an important dynasty which ruled Orissa Introductory. for more than three centuries. Very little authentic was known about them until my article on "The two Copperplate Inscriptions of the king Nrsimha Dēva IV" was read in the meeting of this Society (February, 1891). Since then much additional materials have been published; and their history now rests on surer grounds than the unreliable traditions embodied in the Madaļā Pāñji, or the chronicles of the Jagannatha temple. Nevertheless much confusion still exists specially about their times Confusion about and years of reign. In the note 1, page 133, of my aforesaid article, I pointed out that the total of regnal years added to the abhiṣēka year of Kāmārṇava Dēva (the successor of Coraganga) considerably exceeded the Çaka years of the inscriptions, when it should have agreed with them. Then again, while discussing the article of Babu Nagendra Nath Vasu on "The Copperplate Inscription of Nrsimha Deva II" [see Proceedings of this Society, November, 1897], 1 once more drew attention to this confusion and hoped for some solution of it. As this confusion has been hampering the discussion of all historical events of the Ganga-vamça rule, I have gathered together in this article all the facts known to me bearing upon the subject, and have attempted to cut a way through the confused tangles of inscriptional and other records.

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The inscriptions which I edited in 1891 [published in the Journal As. Soc. Ben., Vol. LXIV (1895), pp. 128The materials. 154,] still give the most complete list of the Ganga-vamça kings, and have, therefore, been made the basis of this article. These copperplates will be briefly referred to as "The Puri Copperplates." The informations given by these copperplates have been checked and supplemented

(i) By three copperplate inscriptions of Cōraganga Deva. They J. 1. 13

were first noticed by Mr. Sewell in his "List of Antiquarian Remains in the Madras Presidency, Vol. I"; but were published in full by Dr. Fleet in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. XVIII. They will be briefly referred to as "The Vizagapatam Copperplates."

(ii) By the copperplate inscriptions of the king Nṛsimha Dēva II, briefly, "The Kendupāṭnā Copperplates." One of them was edited by Babu Nagendra Nath Vasu in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LXV (1896), pp. 229-271; and another edited by him in his Bengali serial "The Viçvakōṣa, article Gāngēya."

(iii) By the numerous stone inscriptions at Mukhalingam, Çrikūrmam, and in their neighbourhood. These have been briefly noticed in Dr. Hultzsch's Epigraphical Report, Madras, for 1895-6, pp. 14-24, and will be referred to by its numbering. The Çrikūrmam inscriptions were first mentioned in Sewell's List, Vol. I; and seeing their importance for Orissa history, I had most of them copied privately in 1891-2. Later on, in 1897, through the kindness of Dr. Grierson I got a no. of date-extracts from Mr. H. Krishna Sastri. Recently Mr. Gait, our Anthropological Secretary, has kindly handed over to me for use a no. of dateextracts of the inscriptions at Mukhalingam and elsewhere. Many of these inscriptions are broken or incomplete or occasionally wrong; but taken together they are invaluable for the history of this dynasty.

(iv) By several stone inscriptions in Orissa.

(v) By references to Orissa and its kings in the inscriptions of other provinces.

(vi) By references in the Mahomedan histories.

(vii) By the Madaļā Pāñji, where facts historically probable have been mentioned.

I may briefly explain here the method adopted for calculating the

The method of calcu- reigns of the kings. Firstly, the Çaka

lation adopted.

years, or the regnal years, if given with tithis and weekdays (or Sankrantis or eclipses), are verified, and their equivalents in the English calendar arrived at with the help of Professor H. Jacobi's Tables in the Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I, pp. 403-460. Nextly, from these verified dates, those which have regnal years are compared, and the initial years of the kings deduced. As the first year of a king is the last year of his predecessor, this enables us to ascertain the beginning and the end of a king's reign.

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Sometimes the verified dates give two or three different years for the initial year; in which case the initial year given by the majority is accepted as being the most reliable. Of some kings no inscriptions with regnal years have been found, and their periods of reign have been taken or deduced from the figures given in the copperplates. Only one king has got no inscriptions; for him the copperplate year has been accepted as it fits in with the deduced dates of the preceding and the succeeding kings.

The years thus calculated are compared below with the regnal years The comparison of the as given in the Puri and Kōndupāṭnā copcalculated dates with per-plates :

the copperplate figures.

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It will be seen that the figures in col. 4 generally vary from those in col. 5. Primâ facie, however, the years which have been deduced from verified dates must be more reliable than the monthless traditionary years given in the copperplates.

Reconcilement of their differences.

It is possible, however, to reconcile the discrepancies in most cases :—

i. The difference of one year or a little more may be due to the omissions of months: e.g., the differences in Nos. 11, 12, and 13 disappear when their total is made up, which (74) is the same both in cols. 4 and 5 (in col. 4, Çaka 1227/8 to Çaka 1300/1; and in col. 5, 24+ 24+26).

ii. The difference in No. 1 may be due either to the tradition

sticking to a round figure, or to calculating the regnal year from the abhiṣēka year instead of the accession year.

iii. But the principal difference is in Nos. 4 to 10, rising in some cases to 6 years. They can be explained, if the regnal years of the copperplates are taken as aŋka years, and not as ordinary years. I am the more inclined to take this view, as I find in the Kendupăṭnā copperplates Bhānu Dēva (No. 9) is distinctly credited with a rule of eighteen aŋkas [Journ. As. Soc. Beng., Vol. LXV (1896), p. 252; plate V. obverse, line 20]. Taken as aŋka years, the copperplate figures come to these: 25 (No. 4)=21; 10 (No. 5)=8; 17 (No. 6)=14; 34 (No. 7)=28; 33 (Nos. 8 and 10)=27; 18 (No. 9) 15. Thus, except in No. 5, all others agree with the deduced years; and in No. 5, ten may be a mistake for eleven anka.

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The peculiarities of the anka regnal years are not well-known. So
for the convenience of readers they are
noted here. The chief special characteristics

The peculiarities of the aŋka years.

are:

(1) 1, and all figures ending in 0 and 6 (except 10) should be.
omitted.

(2) The last aŋka year of one king and the first aŋka year of the
succeeding king (i.e., 2) fall in the same year.

(3) The year begins on the day of Suniya, simha (Bhadrapada)

Çukla dvādaçi.

With these general remarks I now proceed to examine the details of each king. All information about dates have been thrown into a tabular form; and. other details which are likely to throw light on the subject have been given below the tables in brief.

The inscriptional dates fall under three classes. A large number, having weekdays, &c., could be verified Inscriptions. with Professor Jacobi's tables; another, group could not be verified, though weekdays, &c., have been given either on account of mistakes or of my own failure; another group cannot be verified at all for want of weekdays, &c. They have been noted respectively in the remark column as verified, ' " "irregular, or “unverifiable."

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The inscriptions are either in Sanskrit, Telugu, or Oriya language, and have been denoted in the number column as such by letters S., T., and O.

When an era year is given, it is always Çaka. Its numeral numbers

Their general details.

are generally in figures, occasionally in
symbolical words, often in both. The Çaka
figures are generally in Telugu inscriptions

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