218 Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions. [March, 



III. — Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions ; continued from page 97. 



In the library of the Asiatic Society are ten manuscript volumes of 

 drawings of sculpture, images, architecture and inscriptions, forming 

 part of the celebrated collection of the late Colonel Mackenzie. The 

 greater portion of these are as yet unknown and undescribed. None of 

 the series, as far as we can ascertain, have been published, nor are 

 we aware of any attempt having been made to decypher the inscrip- 

 tions. It is greatly to be wished that the whole of these interesting 

 documents could be digested in some convenient arrangement and 

 nifide accessible to the learned world, especially now that the inven- 

 tion of lithography offers a cheap and expeditious means of effecting 

 such an object. We were in hopes of combining their publication in 

 the form of a volume or two of plates, with the digest of the Mac- 

 kenzie manuscripts, which, at tbe recommendation of the Society, the 

 Government has lately entrusted to the Rev. W. Taylor at Madras, 

 the author of " Oriental Historical manuscripts." As a specimen of the 

 contents of these curious volumes, Captain Cunningham has kindly 

 favored me with the two lithographs numbered as Plates X. and XI. 

 He has selected the two longest inscriptions from the volume, No. 18, 

 entitled " Antiquities at Amardvati," a town in the Berdr province, 

 situated on the Kistna river to the west of Ndgpur. 



The volume in question contains a multitude of very beautiful draw- 

 ings of the elaborate sculpture for which the ruins at that place are 

 so remarkable. One of the slabs of stone, depicted among the rest, 

 now forms a principal ornament of the Society's museum, and the 

 execution of the lively scene it represents has been frequently and 

 deservedly admired. The majority of the sculptures of Amardvati 

 seem to belong to a magnificent dehgopa or Buddhist shrine ; but there 

 is an admixture towards the end of the volume of objects of the linga 

 worship. An accurate map of the town is prefixed, whence it appears 

 that the ruined dehgopa whence the^ relics are taken was on a mound 

 of 150 feet diameter, now converted into a tank. It is called Dipal- 

 dinna, (translated by Colonel Mackenzie " the mound of lights,") 

 which so resembles the name of a similar place of Buddhist celebrity 

 in Ceylon {Dambadinna) that we imagined, on seeing the inscription from 

 the east side of the gateway (PL X.), some mistake must have been 

 committed ; for on comparing the characters with Plate XXVIII. of 

 the Journ. As. Soc. vol. v. p. 554, their perfect identity with the Cey- 

 lonese type of old Nagari was manifest : indeed the three initial let- 

 ters appear to form the same word " mujike" . . . and the same combi- 



