104 J. Cockburn— Sitas Window. [MaRCS, 



been told by Dr. Burgess — Dr. Fiihrer of the Archaeological Survey- 

 has independently discovered the inscription aud is taking steps to obtain 

 a more exact copy by means of an impression taken from the rock. At 

 present the inscription cannot be fully read. Some of the letters are 

 either not accurately copied, or they are not sufficiently well preserved 

 on the rock. The inscription is written in the so-called Asoka charac- 

 ters, of a somewhat later type, and to judge from that fact, it should 

 belong to about the beginning of the Christian era. A peculiarity of it is 

 that it writes the conjunct r, after as well as before the consonant to which 

 it is joined. Thus in the 4th line we have praputdnam " of the descen- 

 dants," where the r in. pra is indicated by a wavy line under pa, exactly 

 as in the Girnar Inscription of Asoka. Again in lines 3 and 4 we have 

 nirvdpita (nirvdpida) " deceased." Here the change of t to d is another 

 peculiarity. The r, however, is as often assimilated in the usual 

 fashion, as in mitasa (mittassa, Skr. mitrasya) in the 2nd line. Another 

 peculiarity is the frequent use of what Dr. Biihler calls the serif, i. e., 

 a small stroke to define the ends of the horizontal or vertical strokes 

 which form the body of the letter. 



The inscription, so far as I am able to make it out, reads as fol- 

 lows. The dots indicate letters which are said to be lost on the rock. 

 The ' dashes' indicate illegible letters. 



*TTfT €rsr 3TTqf% fa 



*recne x° +* 



Gopa aputrasa « 



bapasa trimitasa <» © 

 niatam lena Gopali ni 

 rvapida-praputanam « o 

 a — dhatenena lena 



karita pu dasa © © e o 



masatachha 10 + 5 ( = 15) 



The paper will be published in Part I of the Journal for 1887. 



