342 Facsimiles of various Ancient Inscriptions. [June, 



and substituted what he considered would better fill up the gaps ; the 

 sense was, however, so completely jumbled by these amendments, that 

 I was loth to trust the translation to print without first troubling our 

 learned Vice-President, the Rev. Dr. Mill, to look it over : and it was 

 fortunate 1 did so, as will be seen by the comment his valuable notes 

 afford on the attempt of the Benares pandit ! As for the Bengali's ver- 

 sion, it was so much worse as to be unworthy of notice. 



I had first imagined that the Shahab ud-din, whose invasion and 

 assault brings upon him the epithet of '^'ST^Tr (the wicked-minded 

 and tyrannical YavanaJ must be the first Patan sovereign of that 

 name, whose overthrow of Raja Banar of Benares in 1193, A. D., is 

 circumstantially recorded in Ferishta. The date, however, which cor- 

 responds with Thursday, the 5th August, 1333, A. D., falls in the 

 reign of Muhammed Shah ; and Dr. Mill has succeeded in discover- 

 ing the actual owner of the title Shahab ud-din referred to. 



The inscription has some interest in a historical view, as supplying 

 the names of three successive rajas of Benares in the 13th century, 

 of which no clue is to be obtained from other sources. Neither local 

 tradition nor history supply any information regarding the holy city sub- 

 sequent to the overthrow of the fort by Cutb ud-din, until a cursory 

 notice of it occurs as the site of an encampment, in Baber's Memoirs. 



Dr. Mill's restoration of the text is as follows, placing the inter- 

 polations in smaller type. 1 have inserted his notes on the pandit's 

 version, as affording an useful example of the caution necessary in 

 such cases, and proving how utterly void of trust are the attempts of the 

 pandits of the present day, unless they have to deal with one capable 

 of understanding what they would foist upon the unsuspicious as 

 faithful transcript and good sense. 



th^oTe. Verse. * Wt TOT^ TO | 



l i ^nferrc to irov^wr ^rm ttctct: i 



2 II * ^WlT WTf%W*n fasniT *T5RTTTW I 



3 III. cT^N«5|JliT ^TTcP *^P^ft ?WfW*TT«r | 



*M<MJlwiT fk^Jl' TjTqrsren || 



iv. ^TftrcxiT2«]pr^r ^rsrr ^rsrfa irrfafan i 



