1 834.] of tie Allahabad Pillar. 1 1 9 



The alphabet of the Allahabad inscription offers certainly a great 

 apparent similarity to that of a part of the Gya inscription, examined 

 by Dr. Wilkins, [As. Res. vol. i. page 279,] as pointed out by Lieut. 

 Burt, of the Engineers. It almost entirely coincides with that of some 

 inscriptions on the rocks of Mahamalaipur, (vide Trans, of Royal 

 As. Soc. vol. ii. part 1, Plates 13, 14.) Notwithstanding this 

 similarity common to a great number of Indian alphabets, it is not yet 

 easy to fix the value of each letter of an ancient writing, in such a 

 manner as to preclude the possibility of a doubt. 



It was principally the alphabet of the Mahamalaipur inscriptions that 

 enabled Madhava Rao to transcribe in Devanagari characters, the 

 remains of the inscription copied from the pillar at Allahabad. This 

 consists of 30 lines. More than a moiety of the first 13 lines is entire- 

 ly pealed off ; the other 1 7 are fuller, but evidently more or less cut off 

 at the right extremity, and all with many intervening chasms. 



An even slight examination of the transcript made in Devanagari 

 characters is sufficient to find a number of Sanscrit words, and the 

 whole inscription may without hesitation be pronounced to be San- 

 scrit. In the accompanying paper, the translation of the Sanscrit 

 words, which could without difficulty be found in each line, is given. 

 Scarce any change has been made in the words of the transcript, except 

 in a few instances, such a correction as is too often indispensable even 

 in not inaccurate manuscripts. These few changes are marked above 

 the lines. 



As the frequent and wide disjunction of words, the terminations of 

 which are mostly wanted, renders it impossible to fix the relative sense 

 of each word, as well as to determine the general purport of the whole, 

 any conjectural labour in changing vocables and supplying deficiencies 

 w r ould have been hopeless. 



So much only appears indubitable from the words themselves, that 

 they are encomiastic epithets of a Raja, the name of whom, if satisfac- 

 torily made out, might furnish an historical datum of no small import- 

 ance. 



Names are really found in the 17th, 18th, and 21st lines which seem 

 insignificant; not so those in the 25th and 26th line, which happen to be 

 more complete and connected than the others : thus we have in the twenty- 

 fifth line ; — " of the great-grandson of Sri Chandragupta, the great 

 Raja, of the grandson of the great Raja Sri Yagnakacha, of the son of 

 the great Raja, the first (supreme) Raja (Adhiraja) Sri Chandragupta •" 

 and in the twenty-sixth line, " of the son of the daughter of Lich-ch'ha 

 Vikriti of the family of Mahadivva Kumara. — of the great Raja, the 

 supreme Raja Sri Samudragupta, whose fame caused by the conquest 



