Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/80

Rh 90 years. The Epoch of this Cycle occurs on the expiration of the 3078th year of the Kaliyuga, in 24 B. C. The years follow the ordinary Solar or Siderial reckoning. The concurrent Christian year for any year reckoned by the Cycle may readily be found by multiplying the number of the Cycle by 90 and adding the year and subtracting 24. Thus the 36th year of the 2nd Cycle is equal to 2x90+36—24 or 192 A. D. The deed of the Chera King Bhaskara-Ravi-Varman, which is dated in a year equivalent to 192 A. D., appears to be therefore the oldest of the copper plate inscriptions preserved in Southern India, and as such, it deserves to be carefully studied. To those students of history who place more faith in inscriptions than in ancient literature, this deed affords the most satisfactory evidence of the civilization of the Tamils in the second century A. D. The language of the deed being very old and obscure Tamil, and some of the terms used being obsolete, it is difficult to render it correctly into English, but I give below a translation of it conveying the meaning of the deed as close to the original as I can render it.

The grant vouchsafed by the King of Kings His Majesty Sri-Bhaskara-Iravi-Varmmar, during his reign—may it last for many hundred thousand years! - the 36th year against the 2nd year (Cycle), when he tarried at Muyirik-Kodu.

We have given to Joseph Rabban the principality of Anjuvannam, the (right to levy) tribute in money and in kind, the revenue of Anjuvannam, the light by day, the spreading cloth,