1892.] Address. 61 



which according to his theories must have been the north wall of the 

 prison. According to Mr. Wilson this cannot have been the case; be- 

 cause the space south of this cross-wall is shown by the plan of the 

 Fort to have been occupied by the foot of the staircase leading to the 

 south-east bastion. On the other hand Mr. Wilson thinks it quite possi- 

 ble that this wall is the south wall of the prison. Mr. Wilson, however, 

 still hopes to gain additional information concerning this and other 

 points in the topography of the Fort by further excavations and by the 

 examination of old records. 



Discovery of the Boiver MS. — I will now draw attention to the great 

 event that has marked the history of the year, in the discovery in Kashgaria 

 of the Bower MS., so called by Dr. Hoernle after Lt. Bower, who found 

 and brought it to India. Of the history of this discovery we have the 

 following account by Lt. Bower. The MS., which is written on birch-bark, 

 " had been dug out of the foot of one of the curious old erections just out- 

 side a subterranean city near Kuchar." These erections are described as 

 being " generally about 50 or 60 feet high, in shape like a huge cottage- 

 loaf ; built solid of sun-dried bricks with layers of beams now crumbling 

 away." Dr. Hoernle reasonably conjectures that these erections are 

 Buddhist stupas. Such stupas, he observes, often contain a chamber 

 enclosing relics and other objects ; these chambers are generally near 

 the level of the ground, and are often dug into by persons in search of 

 hidden treasure. From such a practically air-tight chamber, Dr. Hoernle 

 thinks, this MS. was probably dug out, perhaps not long before it came 

 into Lt. Bower's possession ; and there is no reason why a birch-bark 

 MS., thus preserved from the chances of injury, should not endure for 

 any length of time. 



The MS. was sent by Lt. Bower to Col. Waterhouse, who exhibited 

 it at the meeting of the Society in November 1890, but it could not then 

 be deciphered. An account of its acquisition by the finder, together with 

 facsimile reproductions of two leaves of the MS., appeared in the Pro- 

 ceedings for that month. On Dr. Hoernle's return to India in March 

 1891, the MS. passed into his hands ; and in the Proceedings for April 

 Dr. Hoernle gave a preliminary account of the MS., which he had then 

 ascertained to be written in Sanskrit of a very archaic type. The 

 detailed description of the MS. was published in No. II of Part I of the 

 Journal for 1891. In that paper Dr. Hoernle minutely analysed the forms 

 of the letters occurring in the MS. ; and by a chain of arguments, the 

 strength and lucidity of which are such as to compel the assent of every 

 reader, proved that the MS. was written not in the S'arada character of 

 Kashmir, as had been previously conjectured, but in the Gupta charac- 

 ter, a much earlier form ; that separate portions of it were written by 



