484 Note on the identity of the Mathiah Ldth Inscription [Oct. 



Allahabad and Delhi, with a view to find any other words which might 

 be common either to two or to all three of them, I was led to a most 

 important discovery ; namely, that all three inscriptions are identically 

 the same. Thus, the whole of the Bettiah inscription is contained 

 verbatim in that of Feroz's Lath, published in four consecutive plates, 

 in the seventh volume of the Asiatic Researches : and all that remains 

 of the Allahabad inscription can with equal facility be traced in the 

 same plates, with exception of the five short lines at the bottom, which 

 appear to bear a local import. The last eleven lines of the east in- 

 scription of the obelisk of Delhi have indeed no counterpart in the 

 other two ; but this may be also owing to the destruction of the corre- 

 sponding lines of these two texts, which happen to be, on them, the final 

 and nethermost portion of the sculpture. 



To enable the reader to judge of the agreement of the three inscrip- 

 tions, I have added to Plate XXIX., since it has been engraved, margi- 

 nal references, to point out the corresponding sheets of the Delhi inscrip- 

 tion. I have also marked all the variations, omissions, and redun- 

 dances that occurred on a careful comparison of the two texts, omitting 

 only the mere errors of vowel marks, the correction of which would 

 have confused the already painful closeness of the writing. Consi- 

 dering that the Bettiah inscription was taken down by a native artist, 

 the errors of copying do not appear to be very numerous. There 

 are more considerable discrepancies found on collating the Allahabad 

 transcript of Lieut. Burt, with the original from Delhi, owing no 

 doubt to its dilapidated condition. It is a fortunate circumstance that 

 the Delhi sculpture remained in so perfect a state of preservation, 

 when it was first discovered and examined by the English. It seems 

 moreover to have been most carefully taken down by Captain Hoare. 



On referring to my former note on the Allahabad column it 

 will be remarked, that most of the anomalous letters, which I had 

 thrown out of the classification of this alphabet in Plate V., are, on com- 

 parison with the other texts, now reduced into simple and known 

 forms. A few other remarks that occurred on passing my eye carefully 

 over the whole three inscriptions, may perhaps help in determining 

 the value of some of the letters. 



1 . I asserted on that occasion that there appeared to be no com- 

 pound letters : — several very palpable instances however occur in the 

 Bettiah inscription, of double letters substituted for two single ones 

 in the Delhi column. These are as follows : 



In the fourth line of the Bettiah version J£ is found to be substi- 

 tuted for DX of the Delhi text. In the first line the same substitution 



