[INDOLOGY] Fwd: Ms colopon from Nepal, need help

[Manu Francis]

Oops! I forgot to "reply all" the message forwarded below and see now that
Alessandro Battistini has a good proposition for solving the question of
-khacare (which I took for two words).
So the date would be 2 (ayana) 5 (śara) 9 (khacara), i.e 952 Nepalese era =
1831/32 CE.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Manu Francis <manufrancis at gmail.com>
Date: 2016-08-02 9:53 GMT+02:00
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Ms colopon from Nepal, need help
To: fifield at fas.harvard.edu

Dear Justin,

(a)yaṇaśarakhacare is a chronogram or bhūtasamkhyā, that is the date in the
Nepalese era is expressed here by words.

See Richard Salomon, 1998, Indian Epigraphy, p. 173:
"The date of an era may be given in numerical figures, words, or both. In
verse
inscriptions, especially from later centuries, it was a common practice to
give the
date in the form of a chronogram (bhūtasamkhyā), with the digits expressed
by words
for items associated with particular numbers. The suggested numbers are to
be read
in reverse order (according to the principle aṅkānāṃ vāmato gatiḥ,
"numerals run
leftward") with an understood place value notation; that is to say, the
first word in
the chronogram gives the units digit, the second the tens, and so forth."
But see note 31 in R. Salomon: "Occasionally, however, chronograms are
intended to be read in normal order".
R. Salomon provides references where you can find lists of words used with
numerical significance.

In the present case, I suggest yaṇa-śara-kha-care means 2-5-0-?, i.e. ?052.
yaṇa = ayana in sandhi = 2, because the sun has two courses in a year (one
towards north, the other towards south).
śara = 5, because Kāma has five arrows.
kha = 0, because the word means vacuity.
As for cara, I do not know. But the nepalese era starting in 879 CE, if I
am not wrong, we can surmise that it stands for 1 or 0.

So 0052 of the Nepalese era = 931/32 CE. (I would exclude cara as 0,
because if the date is 52, I would expect just yaṇaśare.)
Or 1052 of the Nepalese era = 1931/32 CE.

Now you can check these possible dates against the palaeography of the MS.
And you can check the lists referred to by R. Salomon, looking for cara.
And colleagues may have met cara in other chronograms and might provide
confirmation of the corresponding figure?

With very best wishes.

--



Emmanuel Francis
Chargé de recherche CNRS, Centre d'étude de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (UMR
8564, EHESS-CNRS, Paris)
http://ceias.ehess.fr/
http://ceias.ehess.fr/index.php?1725
http://rcsi.hypotheses.org/
Associate member, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Culture (SFB 950,
Universität Hamburg)
http://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/index_e.html
https://cnrs.academia.edu/emmanuelfrancis

2016-08-01 23:10 GMT+02:00 Justin Fifield <aksobhya.buddha at gmail.com>:

> Dear list,
>
> In manuscript E 1160/3 of the National Archives of Nepal (Nepal German
> Manuscript Project)--also cataloged by the Asha Saphu Kuti as 5229--the
> following colophon is given at the end of the text:
>
> nepālavarṣe yaṇaśarakhacare vidyānandena likhitaṃ hi śubhaṃ bhūyāt ||
>
> Does anyone know what "yaṇaśarakhacare" designates?
>
> Attached is a photo of the folio (if it goes through).
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> - Justin Fifield
>
> fifield at fas.harvard.edu
>
>
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