464 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [Jnly, 1907.. 



of a Buddha or some otlier deity of the Mahayanist Bud- 

 dhist Pantheon or a Chaitya accompanied by the Buddhist 

 formula " Ye Dhamma hetu, etc.," or some other suitable quotation 

 from the Buddhist Scriptures. I gather from Dr. Annandale that 

 such votive seals are ntimerous in the Far East. When I saw 

 these seals for the first time, I thought that they had been 

 obtained from some part of India proper, so Dr. Annandale's state- 

 ment that they came from the Malay Peninsula came to me as a 

 surprise. These seals possess three well-marked characteristics 

 for which they should hold a promiment place in the study of 

 Indian antiquity and history, as Dr* Annandale has already 

 pointed out, we have paid more attention to the outside influences 

 which have affected India than to that sphere out of India where 



Ind 



three characteristics are : 



a preponderant influence. The 



(1) The human figui-es on the seals are decidedly Indian, as 

 a glance at the accompanying photograph will show. The human 

 representations on them offer a contrast when compared with those 

 on the seals from Burma and other places in the Far East.^ On 

 the other hand they compare favourably with the Northern Indian 

 Buddhist sculptures. If we compare the largest of these five seals 

 with one of the sculptures from Sarnath now in the Indian Musuem, 

 we find that they resemble to a considerable extent both in execu- 

 tion and in the seal. The branching lotus-stalks and the figures 

 on them are undoubtedly similar.^ 



(2) All of these seals bear inscriptions and their characters 

 form the second of the three characteristics. The characters of these 

 seals are Indian. They are Northern Indian Nagari characters 

 of the 11th century a.d. Some seals bearing inscriptions 

 in Northern Indian chai^cters were sent to Dr. Kern of Leyden by 

 Mr. C. 0. Blagden, who has described them recently.^ But Dr. 

 Annandale informs me that these seals do not l>ear any human 

 representation or symbol on them. Dr. Kern has not specified to 

 which group of northern characters they belong. Mr. Vikrama 

 Singhj of the Oxford Institute, has already noticed that the charac- 

 ters on these seals are Northern Indian. On a closer examination 1 

 find that they resemble the characters of the Benares grant of Karna- 

 deva and those of the grants of the Rathorsof Kanauj- Roughly 

 speaking they belong to the western group of the Nagari of the 

 11th Century a.d. as distinguished from the eastern group of the 

 Nagari of the same century as found on the Deopara inscription 

 of Vijaya Sena of Bengal, The presence of these seals thus be- 

 comes of much importance in the study of the history of India. 

 Their presence can be accounted for in two ways ; 



(a) That there was a colony of Northern Indians in the Malay 

 Peninsula. 



i Anderson's Catalogue, Part II, p. 173-4 " Terra Cotta Medallions'' 

 from Rangoon. 



« Anderson's Catalogue, Part II, p. S. 5. 



3 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Straits Branch} 1903, p. 205. 



