1895.] Philological Secretary — GJdnese equivalent for Uajjgawidtl. 87 



The Phelological Secretary read the following note on the Chinese 

 equivalent for Raggamati. 



In Mr. Beveridge's paper Ori the Site of Kama Suvarna, read at 

 the meeting of December, 1893, ^ he identified this town, the Kie-la-na- 

 su-fa-la-na of Hiuen Tsiang with the town of Raijgamati in the 

 Murshidabad district. In the course of his article, Mr. Beverldge 

 quoted Hiuen Tsiang as follows — "By the side of the capital there 

 rises the monastry called Lo-to-wei-chi-seng-kia-lan," which last word 

 is, according to M. Julien, the phonetic equivalent of the Raktaviti 

 Saijgharama, which again Mr. Beveridge argues is the same as Ragga- 

 mati. Lo-to-wei-chi, means, in Chinese, 'red earth,' and cliffs or 

 bluffs of red clay form a prominent feature in the scenery of Raqga- 

 mati. He suggests that instead of Raktaviti, the Sanskrit equivalent 

 should be Ragamrttika, or Raktamrttika, the latter portion of the com- 

 pound, mrttika being the equivalent of the Chinese wei-clii. He 

 further points out that in Hiuen Tsiang's life, the word is Ki-to-mo-clii, 

 instead of the Lo-to-wei-chi of the travels, and suggests that this dif- 

 ference of reading may lead to a settlement of the question. Mo-chv 

 may be right, and may be the equivalent of mrtti. 



Some time ago, I had the fortunate opportunity of submitting the 

 point for the opinion of M. Sylvaiii Levi, perhaps the only person in 

 the world capable of deciding it, for he is equally competent a scholar 

 of Sanskrit and of Chinese. He very kindly writes as follows, — 



' The difference between the two words Ki-to-mo-chi, of the Life, 

 and Lo-to-ivei-chi, of the 8i-yu-ki, is simply due to the confusion of 



two graphic signs nearly identical. The syllable Lo ( -X. '^^ \ of the 



Si-yu-ki very closely resembles the character Ki (^ ) of the Life, 



the only difference being that the character which surmounts the 

 ( p ), is ( ^ ) in one case, and ( ^ ) in the other. Similarly 

 with regard to the character wei ( ^ ) which only differs in the 

 arrangement of its two horizontallines from the character mo ( -Jt" \ 

 In the former, the shorter line is written above the longer, and in the 

 latter, the reverse is the case.' 



* The reading Lo is the more probable, for Julien, in his Methode, 

 cites no example of the character Ki occurring in the transcription of 

 Sanskrit names, nor have I ever met an instance. On the other hand, 

 for the same reason, the character mo is more probable than wei. The 

 regular transcription of Lo-to-mo-chi would be a Prakrit from Ratta- 

 mati\_kd'], the equivalent of the Sanskrit Bakta-mrttikd which corresponds 

 to the meaning " Red clay " given to the convent by the Pilgrim.' 

 i Jourual, Yol. LXII. Pt. I for 1893. pp. 315 and ff. 



