1834.] Note on Inscription of the Allahabad Column. 115 



We have however before us what remains at this time of its interesting 

 contents, and must hasten to make them known for the satisfaction of 

 the antiquarian and the Sanscrit scholar. There are, as Lieut. Burt has 

 fully described, three principal types of inscription, exclusive of the 

 modern Persian sculpture. 



The two first and most important I have carefully reduced from the 

 facsimiles presented to the Asiatic Society, so as to suit the pages of the 

 Journal. — The third, No. 3 of Lieut. Burt, consists merely of detached 

 names and dates in modern Nagari, Bhaka, Marhatta, &c, and though the 

 longest, is the least interesting, and is not worth the trouble of tran- 

 scribing. A few of the dates are enumerated in the foregoing account. 



No. 2, as pointed out by Lieut. Burt, is identical in character with the 

 Gya inscription decyphered by Dr. Wilkins. It was made over at the 

 meeting of the Society to Captain Troyer, Secretary of the Sanscrit 

 College, who has been fortunate enough, with the aid of Madhava Ray 

 Pandit, the librarian, to decypher many parts of it : and their examina- 

 tion has developed the names of several princes, and particularly of 

 Chandragupta, perhaps the one most earnestly desired by the Indian 

 antiquarian, because of its connection with an epoch in the histories of 

 the western world. Dr. Wilkins had imagined the Gya character to 

 be as ancient as the Christian era, which will be confirmed, if the 

 Chandragupta spoken of be the same of whom Arrian speaks. Some 

 doubt may again arise from the discovery of his name on a monument at 

 Allahabad, with regard to the position of his capital, a point that has only 

 lately been considered to be set at rest by the identification of Palibothra 

 with Pataliputra or Patna. The name of Samudragupta as a fourth de- 

 scendant of Chandragupta is not found in the Hindu catalogues of the 

 Maurya dynasty, although there can be no doubt of the reading on the 

 column. I have extracted the name and titles of Chandragupta, and 

 placed them in the plate under the alphabetical key, to shew that it 

 has been faithfully rendered by the pandit. 



One other Raja of the same name occurs among the Ajmeer or Raj- 

 putana princes in the seventh century, but here also the descendants 

 are of different appellations. The only argument which occurs to me 

 as favoring the latter date, is tbe great similarity between the 

 Sanscrit character of the inscription and the Tibetan, (noticed also by 

 Lieutenant Burt) : the alphabet of which, according to Mr. Csoma de 

 Koros, was adopted from the Sanscrit in the seventh century. Many 

 letters are indeed identical and of the same phonic value, as will be 

 evident on comparing the following with the alphabet in plate VI : — 



(Z kh, K\g,Z ch, & ch '^ j, ^ t, x^ d, *j n, y p, TQph,-!^ b,^v,^h,Xif y, 

 Qi I, s\ sh ; also the whole of the vowel marks tt i, u, * e, v o : the sub- 



