54 G. A. Griersou — Report on investigation at Bodh-Gayd. [April, 



and the broken shaft placed on the end base. The vpalk itself was still 

 visible in Hwen Thsang's time (A.D. 640) ; but the pillar bases were 

 then covered by a plastered terrace. This arrangement of letters has 

 an important bearing on the antiquity of the Indian alphabet, as it shows 

 that the several characters had already been arranged in their present 

 groups as guttm^als, palatals, cerebrals, dentals, labials, semi-vowels and 

 sibilants. The southern row of these bases was partly hidden under the 

 basement of the Great Temple which had been built over them on. a 

 slightly different alignment, part of the two most westerly bases alone 

 appearing 7 inches outside the wall, while all the easterly bases were 

 completely covered. 



" As these pillar bases showed that the walk had once been roofed 

 over, I made diligent search for some remains of the pillars, and I was 

 fortunate enough to light upon an octagonal shaft with a female figure 

 on it, which had been brought to light by Mr. Beglar's excavations. On 

 measuring the bottom of the shaft, I was delighted to find that it was 

 of the same dimensions as the recessed tops of the bases. The westerly 

 base of the southern row, which bore the Asoka letter A, was therefore 

 extracted and when the octagonal shaft was set upon it, it ,was found to 

 fit so exactly that there could be no doubt that the two pieces belonged 

 to the same pillar. This proved to be the case when, turning the shaft 

 round for a better view, it was found to be marked with the same letter 

 A as the base on which it was then standing. No fragments of other 

 shafts have yet been found." 



Sir A. Cunningham gives photographic fac-similes of the letters 

 on Plate X, fig. 1, of his work, and on page 16 annotates this illustra- 

 tion in the following terms : — 



" At the top of the plate, fig. 1, I have given fac-similes of the 

 Asoka letters found on the Persepolitan pillar bases of Buddha's walk. 

 The first two are the vowel a on the base and its shaft ; the third letter, 

 k, was found on the first base of the northern line, opposite a. The 

 remaining letter's, g, chh,j and t, were found on the 3rd, 7th, 8th and 

 11th bases of the same line. The other letters were lost owing to the 

 breaking of the edges or lips of the upper parts of the bases." 



I now proceed to describe what I myself saw. As my account will 

 differ from that of Sir A. Cunningham's in important particulars, casts 

 of the entire row of pillar bases will be deposited in their original order 

 in the Indian Museum, so as to enable scholars to judge for themselves. ■ 



In his " Mahabodhi " (Plate V), Sir A. Cunningham gives what 

 purports to be an accurate plan to scale of Buddha's Canhama as he 

 saw it. As this plan is not correct for the Cank^ma as it now stands, 

 I give in figure 1 a new plan drawn to scale by the overseer in chax^ge 

 of the Temple. 



