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16. Pala Inscriptions in the Indian Museum. 
By Ninmant Cuakravartti, M.A. 
Communicated by N. Annanpate, D.Sc., Officiating Superintendent, 
ndian Musewm. 
The following inscriptions have been found on the pedestals 
of images from Bihar deposited in the Archeological gallery of the 
Indian Museum, 
All the inscriptions are votive records and, with one exception, 
are dated in regnal years of the Pala sovereigns of Magadha, who 
were Buddhists and great promoters of Buddhism in the eastern 
parts of India. One of these records—No, 1—is, strictly speaking, 
non-Buddhistic, though found in a — centre of Buddhism ; the 
remaining ones are purely Buddhis 
No. I.—Bodh-Gaya Inscription of the 26th year of Dharma- 
pala :— 
The inscription was found by Sir Alexander Cunningham 
about 1879, to the south of the great temple at Mahabodhi, and 
he made it over to Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, who published a trans- 
endralala had many mistakes, and, consequently, the translation 
was not correct. Cunningham published only a facsimile of i 
his Mahabodhi, pl. xxviii, 3. 1 re-edit the inscription from on 
original, Neerceds is now in the Indian Museum 
ription is on the left portion of a slab measuring 
20°5” x 7° 35” inches,—the other portion eee three figures in 
three recesses—and consists of nine lines, written in the 9th century, 
eastern Nagari, The la a th is Sanskrit, a the whole of it is 
in verse. he number of verses are four. At the end of ev 
line of verse there is a stop, acmob at the end of the —_ line of 
the second verse and at the end of the first line of the fourth. The 
verses are irregularly written. With the exception of a Netter j in 
the end of the third line, and another at the beginning of the 
fourth line, the whole of the inscription is distinctly legible. 
Dr. John Anderson in his Catalogue of the Archeological 
Collections i in a Indian Museum, Vol. 1i, p- 48, has described the 
slab, on which the inscription is incised, in the following way : * A. 
slab with three Bodhisattvas, each in a recess, the oe side of a 
wrong ; the inscription i is er eS anes ani etc., nor the 
figures are those of Bodhisattvas. 
is that of Sarya, recognisable by his hands in the posture of grant- 
ng protection CAbhtte aimaeby holding two lotuses, and his legs 
