108 ExJiihllion of a hirch-harlc Manuscript. TAuo. 



The following gentleman is a candidate for election : 

 Dr. A. Barclay, proposed by Major J. Waterhouse, seconded by Dr H 

 W. M'Cann. 



The Secretaet read a letter from the Rev. K. S. Macdonald announ- 

 cing that the Rev. Jagadiswar Bhattacharjya, the owner of the Mahanad 

 coin referred to in the Proceedings for May and July, had been kind 

 enough to present it to the Society. It appeared also that the Rev. J. D. 

 Bhattacharjya had some years ago lent his coin to Mr. Long, who had sent 

 it to General Cunningham for identification : so that it was the same coin 

 as that of which General Cunningham had forwarded an impression, and 

 was in consequence unique. 



Dr. HoERNLE exhibited a remarkable birch-bark Manuscript, found at 

 Bakhshali, in the Yusufzai District, in the Panjab, and made the following 

 . remarks : 



" The MS. which I have the pleasure of showing to the Society this 

 evening is a very remarkable one. It was found in a ruined enclosure, near 

 Bakhshali, a village of the Yusufzai District, in the Panjab, by a man who 

 was digging for stones ; and it was sent to me by the Panjab Government, 

 in order to be carefully examined and photographed. With the kind assis- 

 tance of Major Waterhouse I had photographs of four leaves prepared at 

 the Surveyor General's Office ; of which photographs I have also the plea- 

 sure of exhibiting a copy to-night. The MS. is written on leaves of birch- 

 bark, which have become so dry by age as to be like tinder, and, unless 

 very carefully handled, they crumble into pieces. Hence, unfortunately, 

 by far the largest portion of the MS. was destroyed when the finder took 

 it up ; and even the small portion that now remains is in a very mutilated 

 state. With much care and trouble I have succeeded in separating all the 

 leaves, and have found that ^^ of them still remain, of none of which, 

 however, much more than one half is preserved. For the purpose of 

 reading and photographing them, I fixed them between two panes of glass ; 

 and afterwards, for permanent preservation, I mounted each leaf separately 

 between two pieces of ' talc' 



" The MS. is written in the so-called S'arada characters, which are still 

 used in Kashmir, and which, as they occur on the coins of the Maharajas 

 of Kashmir, are of a not inconsiderable age. Some of the forms, which 

 very frequently occur in the MS., especially of vowels, very closely resemble 

 the forms used in the Asoka and early Gupta inscriptions. I liave not 

 observed those particular ancient forms in other MSS. written in the 

 S'arada characters, e. y., in the Maharnava MS. published in the Cambridge 

 Pala)ographic Series. Hence I am inclined to look on them as an evidence 

 of great age in the Bakhshali MS. ; and as the West Indus Districts were 



