1896.] Gr. A. Grierson — "Report on investigation at Bodli-Gayd. 55 



The row of pillar bases on the south side, mentioned by Cunningham, 

 is no longer visil)le. In the process of repairing the Great Temple 

 most of them have been left buried within the walls of its foundation. 

 This may be presumed from Cunningham's description, and is borne out 

 by the statement of Jagannath Siijgh, tlie custodian of tlie Temple on 

 behalf of the Malianth, who was there when the repairs were going on.* 

 In my plan the supposed original sites of these southern bases are 

 indicated by dotted squares, and the line of tlie Temple wall is shown. 

 According to General Cunningham, tliis southern line of bases "was 

 lettered as follows in the Bialima (or so called Pali) alphabet : — 



Number of base ... ... 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 



Letter ... ... ah, au, o, ai, e, H, u, l, i, a, a. 



He states, however, that the only letter which survived was that on 

 No. \, viz., a {){). This pillar-base was sent by General Cunningham 

 to the Indian Museum, where it deposited in the Asoka gallery, and is 

 numbered in the catalogue AR. It bears the letter a {)\) clearly cut 

 upon it, but lying on its side, thus (z^C). There are deposited alongside 

 of this pillar-base two step-like plinths of what were apparently similar 

 bases (catalogue mark, ST). These are very possibly all that remain- 

 ed of the bases which General Cunningham said bore the letters a and 

 i. Regarding the letters on the remaining pillar-bases he says that 

 they have all chipped oE. It is impossible to check his statement, for 

 the bases are no longer visible. Is is not improbable that Nos. 2 to 7 

 bore the letters attributed to them, but I cannot understand on what 

 authority he makes out that No. 8 bore ai, that No. 10 bore au, and 

 that No. 11 bore ah, or on what authority he omits the vowels r, f, I, or I. 

 The last four have just as much right to appear as ah. The diphthong 

 oif is a very rare letter, and no instance of the existence of au is 

 known to occur elsewhere. 



The letter ah does not occur in the Pali language. It only occurs 

 in Sanskrit, so that if it existed on any one of these pillar-bases, it 

 ■would prove that Sanskrit was a written language at the time when the 

 masons made the mark. In order to locate it on the eleventh base, 

 besides omitting the letters r, f, I, I, which do not occur in Pali, General 

 Cunningham has had to omit the very common Pali letter am {anusvara). 



* It is, however, stated by him that only the first (a) base was unearthed from 

 the foundations, and that the remaining bases on that side were never seen by 

 General Cuuningliam. As a matter of fact, General Cunningham sent the a base, 

 and, possibly, the plinths of the two next ones, to the Indian Museum. 



t The only instances of the occurrence of ai which 1 know of are in the 

 word thaira ^vhich appears three times in the Girnar rock inscription. It usually 

 appears in Pali under the form e. 



