50 Annual Address. [Feb. 



time at the bead of the ArchaBological Department, to make a thorough 

 excavation of that mound. The work of excavation was carried ont, 

 under the superintendence of Dr. Fiihrer, during the working 

 seasons of 1889 to 1893, and again in 1896. An abundant yield of fresh 

 inscriptions was obtained, impressions of all of which were sent to 

 Hofrath Biihler. Bj him they were carefully examined, and a selection 

 of the most valuable published, with facsimiles, in the Vienna Oriental 

 Journal, as well as in the two first volumes of the Bpigraphia Indica. 

 What makes these inscriptions particularly valuable is the fact that 

 many of them are dated in years of the Indo-Scythian era, that is, the 

 era which was used by the Indo-Scythian kings Kanishka, Huvishka 

 and Yasudeva. These kings flourished in the two first centuries of the 

 Christian era, and their empire included North-Western India, as far 

 down as Mathura. The dates of the inscriptions range from the 5th to 

 98th year of that era, and are, according to the usually accepted interpre- 

 tation, equivalent to AD. 83-176. Accordingly they prove the existence 

 of the Jain order in Mathura at an as early a date as the first and second 

 centuries of our era. Most of these inscriptions were found engraved 

 on the pedestals of Jain statues, and recorded the dedication of these 

 statues to some Jain temple by Jain laymen or laywomen under the 

 direction of some Jain monk or nun, whose spiritual pedigree is carefully 

 recorded. These dedications furnish corroborative evidence on many 

 points of great interest. 



In the first place, the divisiot»s and subdivisions of the order 

 to which the directing monk or nun are recorded to have belonged, 

 strikingly agree with those, the existence of which in the first and second 

 centuries of our era are also recorded in the Kalpastitra and other books of 

 the Jains. One of the Ganas or divisions which is most frequently men- 

 tioned is the Kautika, which was founded by Susthita, who was at 

 the head of the order in the first half of the second century B.C. 

 Moreover this division belonged to the fvetambara section of the 

 Jains. Thus we have here not only indirect evidence of the exis- 

 tence of the ^vetambara Jains in the middle of the second century 

 before Christ, but also direct evidence of the spread of the Kauti- 

 ka division, in the first and second centuries A.D., as far as Mathura, 

 where, to judge from the frequent mention of their name in the inscrip- 

 tions, they had a numerous and prosperous settlement. At that period 

 there was also a Jain settlement in Bulandshahar, for the inscriptions 

 also mention monks of a subdivision called after Uccanagara, or Varana, 

 both of which anciently were names of that town. 



In the second place, the inscriptions prove the existence of Jain 

 nuns as a regular part of the order ; and they also show that these 



