Vol. X, No. 11.] Four Forged Grants from Faridpur. 433 



\N.S.) 



serve to raise grave doubts about the genuineness of these 

 records. He has again committed the fallacy of citing the 

 forms found in some of these inscriptions in support of the 

 genuineness of the fourth record. 



In his examination of the next letter La, Mr. Pargiter has 

 tried to prove that the occurrence of the Eastern and Western 

 forms of the letter La should not be wondered at, because 

 they occur side by side in the other inscriptions. He says it 

 thus appears that both the Eastern and Western forms of La 

 were in use in this region in 531,— the date of Grant A. 

 His whole argument depends for its validity upon the identi- 

 fication of Yasodharmman with Dharmmaditya and upon the 

 assignment of the date of his coronation to 528 a.d. It might 

 be stated in reply that as the identity of YaSodharmman and 

 Dharmmaditya still remains to be proved, and as there is 

 nothing to prove that YaSodharmman began to rule in 528 a.d., 

 so nothing can be definitely affirmed of the date of any of the 

 inscriptions bearing the name of the Emperor Dharmmaditya : 

 consequently Mr. Pargiter fails to prove that the Eastern and 

 Western variety forms of La were used side by side in a 6th 

 century epigraph in Northern India. In conclusion we find 

 that the whole structure of his arguments at once fall to the 

 ground. The forms of the letters used in the word Parkkatti 

 in line 17 of the second side of the 4th inscription come next 

 in order. Here also I find to my regret that I have utterly 

 failed to make myself understood. Mr. Pargiter has tried to 

 prove that there is nothing abnormal in the forms of these 

 letters. Take for instance, the first letter Pa. Mr. Pargiter 

 goes on to argue that it has the same shape as that in Pravart- 

 taniya (line lOj, Nrpasya (line 14) and Pisaca (line 18) ; if Mr. 

 Pargiter had examined the forms of Pa in the words quoted 

 above carefully, he would have come to the conclusion that in 

 the majority of cases the form of Pa is that of the Northern 

 Indian epigraphic alphabets of the 4th or 5th century a.d., 

 having a clearly pronounced acute angle at one end of the 

 base. In some cases the other angle, that is, the obtuse angle, 

 makes way for a slight curve. This curve is very well pro- 

 nounced in the word Pisaca (line 18). There is a further 

 difference between the form of Pa in the word Pisaca and 

 Parkkatti. The common element between these two forms is 

 the existence of the curve and the acute angle at its lower 

 extremities, while the differentia is the elongated form of the 

 letter in the latter word. This elongation of the form is to 

 be found in no other case and is a clear indication of the fact 

 that the letter belongs to the Nagarl alphabet and cannot in 

 any way be taken to be connected with the earlier forms of 

 the Northern Indian epigraphic alphabet. 



The Bodh-Gaya Inscription of Mahanaman of the Gupta 

 year 269 should never be taken to be the prototype of the 



