468 Application of the Sanchi alphabet [June, 



will take one of these, (the most distinct,) of which I have preserved 

 the type-metal cut, and underline it according to the supposed value 

 of each letter. 



Mahdrdvisdgotiputasa atimitarakasapi hdthataddra. 



This is not a facsimile, therefore I dare not assume that it is accu- 

 rately rendered. I should myself incline to think that the final letter 

 was an _j_ or n, producing the word so often found at Sanchi, — ddnam ; 

 making it ' the gift with his own hand (hasta ddnam) of Atri mitraka, 

 the son of the great Rdvisdgoti.' 



But I advance this reading with doubt, and merely to invite the 

 attention of Mr. Stevenson himself to the revision of this and the 

 other Carli inscriptions with which he was so obliging as to favor me, 

 when we were as yet only on the threshold of the inquiry. 



Again : It will be remembered that one of the inscriptions sent 

 down in facsimile last year by Mr. Hathorne from Buddha-gaya*, 

 was in the lat character. It was found engraved on a pillar now form- 

 ing the stancheon of an upper story in the convent, but was supposed 

 formerly to have stood near the temple. On turning to my lithograph 

 of it in Plate XXXIII. of vol. V. I perceive the concluding word 

 ddnam exactly as the Sanchi. The whole line, though very roughly 

 engraved, may be now easily read as 



HJb^J-f" H * A <L r*_L* Ayalekuddangdye ddnam ; 

 e» r 

 ' The gift of Ayaleku danga'.' If the ill-defined mark below the 4- 



be a d , the reading may be Buddagaye ddnam, ' gift to Buddha-gaya.' 

 The foregoing are, after all, but trifling ordeals for the new alpha- 

 bet, compared with the experimentum cruris of the Delhi lat inscrip- 

 tion, which the antiquarian reader will not be satisfied until he sees 

 performed in his presence. To this, then, I will now hasten, content- 

 ing myself with one or two sentences to demonstrate the perfect 

 applicability of the system, and reserving for a future occasion the full 

 interpretation of this strangely multiplied and important document, 

 which it would be hardly fair to expect to read off-hand, even though 

 it were written with entire orthographical precision, which a slight 

 inspection has proved by no means to be the case. 



I cannot select abetter example for our first scrutiny than the open- 

 ing sentence of the inscription. This I shewed in my former papers on 

 the subject to be repeated over and over again in all the lat inscriptions 

 * See Plate XXXIII. of Vol. V. and page 658. 



