398 Vestiges of the Kings of Givalior. [No. 4, 



in a temple of Vishnu at Clwalior. It is a record in prose, in the Kutila 

 character of a somewhat peculiar type, of a grant of three small plots 

 of arable land for a flower-garden, a serai or halting-place and a 

 drinking fountain, as also of an edict for the supply of oil and flowers to 

 certain temples. The donor's name is not apparent, and no genealogy 

 is given of the sovereign during whose reign the ordinance was 

 promulgated. The grants, says the record, were made in the year 

 of Samvat 933 = A. C. 876 when the country was under the supre- 

 macy of a Lord Paramount Bhoja Deva, whose dominion extended to 

 Turkastana which was governed by his Lieutenant Kottapala Malla 

 or Kongapala Malla. Where this Turkastana was situated it is difficult 

 to make out, although it is evident that it was a large province, and 

 included several sub-divisions or cantons (sabbiyakas) having non- 

 Sanskrit names. This would warrant the supposition that it was a 

 Trans-Indian locality and situated somewhere in Baloochistan or 

 Afghanistan. But judging from the fact that the river which is 

 said to flow through it has a purely Indian name — Vrischikdld, and the 

 temples of the place belong to the Hindu divinities Budra, Budra- 

 ni, the nine Durgas, and Pushnasa, I feel disposed to think its locale 

 was nearer home, probably by the nulla, which flows by the foot 

 of the hill close by the temple ; certainly not quite so far as 

 Delhi to the north, or the Aravalli to the west ; the Bajas of 

 Gwalior never having, to the best of our knowledge, held sway 

 beyond those limits. The name of one of the gods, Pushnasa, is of 

 doubtful origin. Pushan is a Vedic divinity and believed to be an 

 ancient term for the sun, and also of the presiding deity of roads,* but 

 that word by no rule of grammar can become Pushnasa, and the query 

 therefore is suggested as to what relationship it may bear to the Pushan 

 of the Parsees. The names of some of the inhabitants are Hindu, while 

 others have strange cognomens. Some names are partly Indian and 

 partly foreign, such as Ba-illa Bhatta and Naka-illa Bhatta, in which 

 while the latter member is decidedly Sanskrita, the ilia has a strong 

 Arabic leaning.f The standard of linear measure in the country was 

 peculiar, and known as that of the Lord Paramount — Pdrames'wara. 

 The quantitive measure of droni was also different, and peculiar to 



* Vide Wilson's Rig Veda, I. p 115. 



t The ilia might be a Prakiita corruption of valtip, but we have few instances 

 of its use in Hindu proper names. 



