AN INSCRIPTION, &CC. 1^1 



IV. 



AN 



INSCRIPTION 

 On a PILLAR near BUDDAL 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT. 



By CHARLES WILKINS, Esouire. 



COME time in the month of November, in the year 

 ^ 1780, I dif covered, in the vicinity of the town of 

 Buddal) near which the Company have a factory, and 

 which at that time was under my charge, a decapitated 

 monumental column, which at a little diftance has very 

 much the appearance of the trunk of a cocoa-nut tree 

 broken off in the middle. It ftands in a fwamp over- 

 grown with weeds, near a fmall temple dedicated to 

 Hargowree, whofe image it contains. Upon my getting 

 clofe enough to the monument to examine it, I took its 

 dimenfions, and made a drawing of it ; and foon after a 

 plate was engraved, from which the accompanying is 

 an impreflion. 



It is formed of a Tingle ftone, of a dirty grey com- 

 plexion ; and it has loft by accident a confiderable part 

 of its original height. I was told upon the fpot that it 

 had, in the courfe of time, funk confiderably in the 

 ground; but upon my digging about the foundation, I 

 found this was not the cafe. At a few feet above the 

 ground is an infcription, engraved in the ftone, from 

 which I took two reverfed impreflions with printer's 

 ink. I have lately been fo fortunate as to decypher the 

 character; and I have the honour to lay before the So- 

 ciety a tranfcript of the original in the modern writing, 

 and a tranflation ; and at the fame time to exhibit the 

 two impreflions I took from the ftone itfelf. 



The 



