448 ON AlfClENT MONUMENTS 



If reliance might be placed on this as an ancient and 

 authentick mounment, its importance, in the confirma- 

 tion of a leading point of Indmi history, would be ob- 

 vious and great. Major Mackenzie, in communicating 

 the copy of it, expresses a doubt of its authenticity ; 

 but remarks, that it can be no modern forgery, for the 

 people themselves cannot read the inscription. I con- 

 cur with Major Mackenzie both in distrusting the 

 genuineness of this monument ; and in thinking, that 

 it is no recent fabrication. 



Numerous and gross errors of grammar and ortho- 

 graphy *, which can neither be explained by a gradual 

 change of language, nor be referred to the mistakes of 

 a transcriber or engraver, but are the evident fruit of 

 ignorance in the person who first penned the inscription 

 in Nagart characters, would furnish reason for discre- 

 diting this monument, were it otherwise liable to no 

 suspicion. But, when to this circumstance are added 

 the improbability of the copper plates having been pre- 

 served during several thousand years, and the distrust 

 with which any ancient monument must be received, 

 where its present possessor, or his ancestor, may have 

 had claims under the grant recorded in it, there can be 

 little hesitation in'considering this grant of Jan ame'j a v a 



• For example Sumac for Samayi { 9^f' for -5 *7^ ) a palpa- 

 ble error obviously arising from the blunder rf an ignorant amanu- 

 ensis writing froin dictation. The mistake occurs more than once ; 

 and can be accounted for, in no other manner : the syllables c and. 

 yi being alike in sound, though dissimilar in form ; and the blunder 

 being such, as no person, acquainted with the rudiments of the 

 San.crk language, could have committed. Other instances have 

 been re; narked, a most equally strong: as Parics/ii/i {'ov Pariuihit-, 

 CfuTcravrartti fir C/iacrniiurtU. Short vowels for long, and vice 

 versa, in repeated instances; the dental for the palatial j; and nii'- 

 mcrous other enors of spelling j besides faults of grammar aad 

 style. 



