1890.] Pandit H. P. Sbastri — On an old gtm from False Point. 167 



of the Flagstaff. Two of these guns are reported to have no inscription 

 on them, and are still at False Point. The third, which contains an 

 inscription, has been removed to Calcutta and placed in Cajatain Petley's 

 compound in Hastings, where every care is taken that the inscription is 

 not injured, I examined the gun and the inscription towards the end 

 of April. The gun is made in the old fashioned method of welding 

 together a number of large iron rings three inches thick with an opening 

 in the middle with a diameter of three inches* It is in fact a unique 

 piece of Artillery. 



The inscription is written in a character intermediate between 

 modern Bengali and the old Kutila. Some letters are quite Bengali, but 

 others retain their Kutila form. For instance J is written 5f, D is written 

 Jf, but I is written ^ and not ^. The inscription is let into the breech of 

 the gun in brass letters. In many places these brass letters have alto- 

 gether disappeared, leaving the indentures in the iron ; in other parts of 

 the inscription the indentures could not be distinguished from the surface 

 of the gun, owing to large corrosions caused by neglect and exposure iu 

 the open air. As far as it can be made out it runs thus :— 



ililn^^cTf^ ;§i?i50®if%s^ 5i^t?itcs^ ^^ i ^ i 



^\ + + + ^jT^JTTfJl tw^^3^£ftt3\ JTC^— ^b-o. 



Maharaja Jayadhvaja who is in heaven obtained this machine 

 * * * a yavana in the year 4- 280. [^t^»T?3l with three letters lost 

 before it, cannot be translated.] So, a Hindu chief obtained this gun 

 from some European. The machine was new at the time as it had not 

 got a specific name, and it was thought so strange that an inscription was 

 placed upon it, and it was exhibited to the people. Who the Maharaja 

 •was it is difficult to tell. He must have belonged to the large number 

 of petty chiefs of Bengal who, after the Muhammadan conquest of this 

 country, founded small States on the borders of Bengal and Orissa and 

 became tributary to the latter. 



I have translated ^i{z'W<i as * the king who is in heaven.' It may be 

 a patronymic of the family of chiefs. 



But the most important part of the inscription is the date. It is 

 said to be in the saka year 280 with some letters lost before 2. If the 

 first figure of the number is 1, it is 1280 S'aka; adding 78 we get 1358, 

 twelve years after the battle of Cressy in which guns were first used in 

 Europe. It seems impossible that guns should travel so far in such a 

 short period of time. It has been suggested that the at the end is so 

 small that it may not be taken into account at all, and the worn out socket 

 hole before 2 may also represent 9. We would in that case come to 928 

 Saka which in many backward places is used for any era. Taking this to 

 be the ordinary Hijri era, as the Bengali year was not known then, we get 



