434 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [December, 1914. 



Eastern variety of the Northern Indian epigraphs of the 6th 

 century a.d. It is doubtless that though this record was 

 incised in North -Eastern India in or about the vear 588-89 

 a.d., it cannot be said that the characters represent the 

 ordinary epigraphic alphabet of North-Eastern India of the 

 6th century.. The characters have much more advanced forms 

 than those of the Mundesvari Inscription of Udayasena of the 

 Harsa year 30,' or the Patiakella Grant of S'ivaraja of the 

 Gupta year 283 ,* 2 but it should be noted that the form of Pa 

 used in the inscription of Mahanaman is in no case like that 

 of the word Parkkatti in the fourth inscription from Faridpur ; 

 the pronounced curve of the lefthand side vertical and the 

 elongation of the letter are altogether wanting there. 



It is quite true that in the next syllable of the word both 

 the Kas are not looped and that the same form of the com- 

 pound is to be found in the first line of Bodh-Gaya Inscrip- 

 tion of Mahanaman. It might be stated in reply that the 

 letters of the Bodh-Gaya Inscription cannot be taken to be the 

 representatives of the 6th century alphabet of the North- 

 Eastern India. If Mr. Pargiter will take the trouble to ex- 

 amine the form of the same compound in the seventh line of 

 the Mundesvari Inscription of Udaysena, he will have to admit 

 that its form is really abnormal. Moreover, he will find no 

 inscription in Northern India where such late forms occur side 

 by side with letters which decidedly belong to the Eastern 

 variety of the Gupta alphabet, and consequently his remarks 

 cannot be taken to be decisive. My former statement about 

 the form of Ka in the fourth inscription from Faridpur still 

 remains to be refuted and needs no modification as yet. 



At the end of this palaeographical examination, Mr. 

 Pargiter proceeds to sum up : "I have now considered all his 

 criticisms on the script in this grant, and have shown that the 

 features which he distrusts are to be found in other almost 

 contemporaneous inscriptions which are genuine; so that as 

 regards the script, there is nothing suspicious in this Grant." I 

 have stated at length that the peculiarities of the character? 

 used in these inscriptions are so varied and unprecedented that 

 no one would venture to pronounce these four grants from 

 Faridpur to be genuine records of the 6th century a.d. All of 

 these inscriptions show forms of characters which belong 

 partly to the Eastern variety of the Gupta alphabet and partly 

 to the Western,— a conjunction which cannot be expected in a 

 genuine record of the 6th century. The Dhanaidaha Grant of 

 Kumaragupta I of the Gupta year 113= 43:2-33 a.d. 3 is an 

 undoubted proof of the fact that in the earlier decades of the 



l Epigraphia Indies, Vol. IX, p. 289. « Ibid., p. 287. 



Journal of the Asiatic Society of Hen J, Vol V. pp. 458-59. 



