Page 451 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

232 SAMAGRA TILAK.-2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

book by others, one of which ( No. 20 ) is thus dated :- " In
the twenty-fourth year ( 24) of the king Vasithiputa, the illustrious
Pu~umayi, in the third ( 3) fortnight of the winter ( Hemanta) months,
on the second ( 2 ) day"; and another is said to be inscribed " On
the tenth day, in the sixth fortnight of Gr£~hma, in the eighth year
of king Ma9hariputta, the lord Sirisena," * Dr. Bhandarkar, in
his Early History of the Deccan, has ascertained that Ma9hari-
putta reigned in the Mabarash~a from about A. D. 190 to 197,
and P~umavi was on the throne of the Maharahstra about
60 years earlier, that is, from A. D. 130 to 154. All the inscriptions
noted above, therefore, belong to the 2nd century of the Christian
era, that is, a long time before the date of Arya Bhatta or Varah-
mihira, whose works seem to have established, if not introduced,
the present system of measuring time by seasons, months, fort-
nights and days. It is, therefore, clear that eighteen hundred
years ago, dates or events were recorded and ascertained by
mentioning only the season, the fortnight and the day of the fort-
night, without any reference to the month of the year; and we
might very well suppose that several centuries before this period
these dates were given by a still more simple method, namely,
by mentioning only the season and the day of that season. And,
as a matter of fact, we do find this method of measuring time,
viz., by seasons and days, adopted in the Avesta to mark the
particular days of the year. Thus in the Afrigan Gahanbar (I, 7-12 ),
as written in some manuscripts mentioned by Westergaard in
his notes on the Afrigan, there is a statement of the different re-
wards which a Mazdayasnian receives in the next life for what he

• Inscription No. 14 of Karle inscriptions runs thus :-~iff~­
~ ~~~!if !;foro( ~mil 19 ~ ~ ~ ~ q~it ~; (or in
Sanskrit- ~ cr~ ~@r~ ~f.r-1: 6<r~ ~ 19, !(l6~ tRit
~. R'ffi SM"ii" ~ ).
Inscription No. 20 of the same section runs thus :- f6"4 ~ ~-
!1«6 ffi/Gid>+11fc1e e<ro( ~ ~¥ ~M .m oo ~ ~ ~ ~;
(or in Sanskrit-ffi~ 1 uw cr~ '>l~·~;rfit: ~<r~ 'if~ ~¥,
~~q:~it~.~~~ ).
An inscription from the Kanheri cave p. 6o is as fol!QWS :- m~ ~
~~ ~r!Tf~Reile e<ro(' fiN ~ ~ ~o; (or in Sanskrit-~~'
um ~~ "ffifir~ ~ ,, ~1. If.~. fc{cr. ~o ).