338 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIX, 
Safichi. One of them belongs to the reign of Vasiska and the 
other to that of Candragupta II. The former would certainly 
be placed considerably earlier than the present record. In 
the inscription of Vasiska,' for instance, the vertical line of 
dh is straight resembling the old Brahmi form of the letter: 
in the present inscription it has become a curve and the whole 
letter has taken oval-like appearance. Again. the letters p and 
are in most cases right-angular, and the left side is straight 
and not broken in the middle as is generally in the present 
record. And further, the subscript y is not at all ornamental. 
and the subscript 7 is only a short curve stroke attached to 
the foot of letters. Thus on the whole the characters of our 
inscription are more akin to those of the Safichi inscription of 
Candragupta JJ,? dated 412 A.D., and therefore should be 
assigned roughly to the Early Gupta period. 
he language of the inscription is Sanskrit, with a few 
Prakritisms, such as irayodasama for trayodasa, 1. 1, vejayika 
for vaijayika, 1.2, and khanapita, for khanita, |. 6; for khana- 
pita, cf. Asoka’s R.E. 11, kapa ca khanapita. An abnormal 
compound is found in |. 1—ajitasenasya svami-M ahasena-maha- 
.., Where ordinarily one would expect a genetive in agecertox 
1 ea 
ae Bees | 
however it commences from the middle of line 4; the first 
following scheme of metre according to MY 
pada shows the 
restoration : 
Ke yO |. +t -h- pe We tie de «6 eb Be rvva 
dhi ga myah sa_ da. 
he composition of the record cannot fail to remind us 
of the kavya style of the inscriptions of the Gupta period.” 
The single fragmentary verse that the epigraph contains 1s 
remarkable for its simplicity and is in striking contrast with 
the prose portion which shows a comparatively involved style 
of composition. The use of long compounds like sasvata-ca ndra- 
stiryya-kaliko = yam, kalyan-abhyudaya-rpiddhy-artham, aksaye- 
svargg-avapti-hetor, etc., seem to be quite in keeping with Dan- 
din’s maxim (ojah samasa-bhiiyast tad = gadyasya jrviiam 
— Kavyadaréa, 1. 80) regarding the Vaidarbhi style of prose. Ex- 
pressions like priya-darsana, dharmm-amala, prasanna-salila, 
and éaévata, which qualify kapa, or ‘the well,’ and gunavat, 



! Cf. Buhler, EJ., Vol. IT. plate o ales : elk dad Sanent Museum 
Catalogue, p. 30 and pl. IT (A. 32 . ne . 
® Fleet, Gupta Inscrs., Pl. 111, B opposite p. 28. : j 
ae, oe. ate’s translation of Biihler’s article ‘Die Indischen 
Insehriften und Kuntspoesie’ in Ind. Ant., 1913. 
