t 



Vol. ni, No. 7.] . Notes on Glay Tablets. 463 



side that have affected India, but comparatively little notice has 

 been taken of the manner in which India has influenced the worid 

 outside. The influence of Indian thought in Tibet has lately been 

 dealt with by several members of this Society, and even the fate 

 of Indian philosophy in Japan has been discussed ; but except for 

 a paper by one who is not a member of the Society and does not 

 reside in India, our recent publications contain few references ta 

 the islands of the " Indian " Archipelago, which forms, together with 

 the Malay Peninsula, an ethnological region profoundly influenced 

 by thoughts and arts which had their origin in the peninsula of 

 Hindustan. 



To return fco the narrower question of the tablets with which 

 this paper deals more directly ; I should say that the tablets were 

 found in the floor of caves which were apparently at one time used 

 as Buddhist temples. At least two such caves have been found in 

 the state of Trang. Mr, A, Steffen has described the sites in 

 detail in Man, 1902, No. 125. 



N. Annandale. 

 DESCRIPTION OF THE TABLETS. 



The five tablets which are described in the following pages 

 were shewn to me by Dr. Annandale about three months ago, 

 Tliey have since been presented by him to the Indian Museum. 

 They were discovered on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula. 

 The five tablets are of various sizes, oval in shape, with a 

 pointed top, and bear impressions both on the obverse and the 

 reverse. They are of baked clay. Though they come from the 

 ilalay Peninsula, they are decidedly Indian. Tablets of clay have 

 been discovered in large numbers in India proper and fall into two 

 classes. The first class, known as " civic, ** has received scant notice 

 until a recent period when Dr. Bloch's discovery of a large number 

 of them on the site of the ancient Vaisali gave a considerable 

 impetus to its study. The second class is known as "votive. 

 The tablets under discussion belong to the latter class. Pilgrims 

 when visiting holy places usually dedicate some object near the 

 principal shrines. In this way the vast number of temples 

 in Hindu and Buddhist Benares have grown up, and the large 

 mound near the Mahabodhi Temple has accumulated. The 

 offering may be anything from a huge temple of stone or brick 

 to clay representations of them, a few inches in length. These 

 votive tablets or seals were placed singly or one over the other, 

 thus indicating that the donor had come on pilgrimage alone or 

 accompanied by his wife. When the whole family went 'on 

 pilgrimage together they placed their votive seals in an earthen 

 vessel. Such vessels full of seals have been found in large num- 

 bers at Bodh'Graya, and some perfectly preserved specitnens 

 can now be seen in the ^luseum Gallery.* These votive seals 

 usually bear impressions ou one side only which consist either 



>» 



f 



ft f '■' ■ ■I * — — r-t— 



I Anderson's Catalogue and Handbook o( the AYch^ologicnl Collections 

 in the Indian Museam, Part II, p. 63. B. G., 192-200. 



