340 Facsimiles of various Ancient Inscriptions . [June, 



III. — Facsimiles of various Ancient Inscriptions. 



Fearing that many of the inscriptions with copies of which I have 

 been favored by my mofussil correspondents, may be mislaid or lost 

 sight of unless committed to print, I am led to anticipate the full ex- 

 planation which many of them doubtless might receive from those who 

 have learning, industry, and will, to decypher them, but want the 

 necessary leisure at present to undertake the task, — by transferring 

 them to the stone at once, and recording them in the Journal along 

 with the notes that accompanied them, where they may be at all times 

 available when accidental discovery may open a clue to their interpre- 

 tation. Some indeed are of a promising nature, andhave been in a great 

 measure made out, while others have been alluded to in former Nos. 

 of the Journal or in the proceedings of the Society, to which refer- 

 ence alone is all that can be offered. I must proceed in the inverse 

 order of the plates, having numbered them without consideration. 



Konkan Inscription. 



No. I. of Plate X. is the reduced facsimile of an inscription on 

 a slab of stone from Wara in South Konkan, presented to the 

 Bombay Literary Society by Captain T. Jervxs, of the Engineers, by 

 whom it was supposed to be in the Cufic character. It was communi- 

 cated to the Bengal Society by our associate the Rev. Mr. Bateman, 

 in January, (see p. 58.) 



Those who have noticed the series of ancient Hindu coins depicted 

 in the November and December Nos. of the Journal of last year, will 

 doubtless recognize in the present inscription the peculiar form of the 

 Nagari character on the Saurashtra group of coins. The trisul sur- 

 mounting the inscription would indeed have been sufficient to negative 

 the possibility of its Cufic origin. From the position of this symbol, 

 which we must suppose to have been in the centre of the slab, it is 

 probable that a third of the inscription on the left hand is broken off, 

 which alone would prevent the possibility of coming at the purport 

 of it. This is a pity on more than one account ; for the initial invo- 

 cation might have afforded a clue to a few of the letters, to the 

 language, and to the sect of Hindus that erected the monument ; al- 

 though the latter may be considered to be sufficiently established by 

 the symbol of Siva surmounting the legend. 



The chief peculiarity of this form of alphabet is, that the tails of the 

 letters are lengthened and turned up backwards in a loop . Abstracting 

 this portion, the essential part of the letter resembles the Gujerati 

 type of Mr. Wathen's inscriptions, (See vol. iv. p. 477.) The vowels 

 also belong to the same type : the y is subjoined to the s and other 



