180 On some Bactro-Buddhist Belies from Bdwal Pindi. [No. 2, 



The first word of the record appears to be distinct enough ; the 

 syllables are si, ri and e = s'irie, the singular dative in Pali of s'ri ; 

 the meaning being, " For the sake of prosperity." The first and the 

 third syllables are undoubted, the second may be read ti, vi, or ri at 

 option, the t, v and r being, as aforesaid, liable to be confounded.* It 

 has been taken for ri because no meaning can be got with vi or ti. 

 Besides, in Oriental writings the word s'ri is always reckoned to be an 

 appropriate beginning for a grave document, as it is supposed to be 

 highly conducive to prosperity. The second word is Bliagava. When 

 I first met it in the Wardak monument, I had some doubts about my 

 reading, and I adopted it only on the analogy of the Burmese vocative 

 of Bhagavan, but in Major Kittoe's collection of unpublished inscrip- 

 tions, there is a Pali record in the Lat character,- which has the word 

 very distinctly in two places, and there seems to be no reason to object 

 to it any longer. 



The syllable immediately succeeding Bhagava is of a very doubt- 

 ful appearance. It makes the nearest approach to a ho. In Mr. 

 Thomas's platef the lapidary h is written thus S, and if the vowel 

 mark for o be put about its middle it would be changed to a shape, 

 which would be very nearly that of the letter in the inscription. The 

 vowel cannot be u, as that letter in the Kapur-di-giri record is given 

 in a different way with a horizotal stroke at foot. The dha after 

 it is undoubted, and then the first syllable is repeated. The prd 

 which follows next is well formed and not liable to be questioned, 

 but what the next syllable is, is quite uncertain. Taking it at a 

 random for a jna, the whole word becomes Bodhahoprdjna. Placed 

 immediately after Bliagava, the word is expected to be the name of 

 the saint whose death the record has to commemorate, but placed 

 between two such pure Sanskrit terms as Boddha and prdjna, it is 

 not easy to account for ho, one feels disposed therefore to suppose 

 that either it is a misscript for hi which is a very appropriate Sans- 

 krita expletive meaning " certainty" and corresponding to the Eng- 

 lish adjunct dior dis ; or the jna is a mislection of something else 

 which with hoprd made a proper noun, but what that is cannot now 

 be guessed. If the syllable ho be taken for te, no advance whatever is 



* The facsimile prepared from a sealing-wax impression is not correct here. 

 The original gold leaf hns ra and not ri. 



t Prinsep's Indian Antiquities, p. 166. 



