Vol. IX, No. 10.] The Limestone Caves of Burma. 423 
[V.S.] 
point. Any statement as to this phenomenon must be quali- 
specific identity but with instances of convergence? At 
present it is not possible to give a satisfactory answer to these 
questions. 
APPENDIX. 
1. Note on clay tablets from a cave in Kedah. 
(Plate XVIII). 
The inscriptions on the fragments of the clay tablet are not 
sufficiently distinct to be read fully and their subject to be 
ascertained certainly. From the letters which form a word 
and render sense, and are identifiable without doubt, my idea 
is that they contain something more than the usual Buddhist 
creed, the ‘‘ YE DHARMA,” etc. 
As regards the age of the inscription, its script pushes 
it down the later part of the 7th century A.D. The letters 
which T have identified without doubt are eight in the large 
fragment and eight in the small one. The eight letters: MA, 
HA, VO, DHI, forming the word ‘‘MAHAVODHI”’: the ini. 
tialin fourth line; and TA, THA, GA, TO, forming the word 
“ TATHAGATO’? placed towards the end of the tenth line of 
the large fragment, resemble MA, HA, VA, DHA, TA, THA, 
GA, in table IV, column XVIII, XIX of G. Buhler’s ‘‘ Grundriss 
der Indo Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde.’’ And 
this is also the case with the other eight. In the small frag- 
ment the four distinct letters DHA, MA, HA, TA, forming 
word ‘‘ DHA (R) MAH (EK) T(U)’’ in the beginning of the first 
line and TA, THA GA, TO, forming the word ‘‘ TATHAGA- 
to his own statement, of 675 .D., and belong to the alphabet 
of that period which is called the Kutila variety of the Maga- 
dha alphabet of the 7th century A.D. Consulting the fac- 
Similes of the inscriptions of that period, I find that the © 
letters I identified in the tablets are allied to those in the 
