396 Notes on the preceding Inscription. [July, 



" one in whom the threefold quality* of holiness, unholiness and defile- 

 ment is unborn or non-existent :" and surely nothing more is required to 

 shew how remote from morality, as well as pure theism, is that pantheistic 

 speculation to which some persons would point as a restitution of the pure 

 religion of ancient India: (though the elementary and heroic polytheism 

 of the other part of the Vedas appears certainly to be much older.) 



XXXIX.— -SfTn^Tji^rmT for spTT^tf fT^TT This is the only instance 

 in the whole incription of a final Anusvara being converted to the nasal 

 letter answering to thefollowing initial consonant, whether dental, as here, 

 or guttural, palatine, cerebral or labial ; according to the constant custom 

 of Bengal, (observed also in the Mahratta copies of the Vedas, and perhaps 

 some other instances,) which has been scrupulously followed in Col. Haugh- 

 ton's valuable edition of the Institutes of Manu. In every other instance 

 the inscription follows the rule of the best Devanagari MSS. in retaining 

 the Anusvara : only, (with many of these, as well as with all Bengal MSS.) 

 always changing the Anusvara to f{ at the end of a verse or a hemistich. 

 In the middle of words the inscription is inconsistent in this respect, 

 like most Devanagari MSS. ; sometimes giving the Anusvara, sometimes 

 the special nasal letter^ (e. g. ^?f or ^*3J, &c. &c.) but more frequently 

 the former. In all these instances, the writing on the stone has been 

 exactly copied by me into modern Devanagari. 



XLII. — This verse is in a measure of 15 syllables, called Mdninl, which 

 is distributed thus. 



WW wwww w w 



Ne'a TftSe nana, fioi vvv tfAOe fxotpa /xa\' viKrpa. 



The subject of this verse, as of verse XXXVIII., might probably be 

 illustrated by closer inspection of the ruins and their site. 



XLII I. XLIV. — The former of these verses is like the II, in heroic 

 measure, the latter is like ver. I., in the hendecasyllable measure Hatha- 

 udgatd. The name of Gaya is perpetuated by the beautiful place in Bahar, 

 that is called after him (only a few miles from the birth-place of the head 

 of the rival religion, Gautama Buddha), to which all India resorts for 

 the performance of offerings to deceased ancestors. But why this sainted 

 Asura is particularly introduced here, does not appear. 



XLV. This verse is in a more ancient description of measure than any of 

 the lyrical ones above described, being independent of the number of sylla- 

 bles, and regarding only their aggregate quantity, like the Dactylic and 

 Anapaestic measures of the Greeks. It is called A'ryd, and is composed of 

 two unequal hemistichs : the former consisting of seven Spondaic feet, (i.e. 

 each equivalent to two long syllables or four short ones,) and a redundant 

 syllable ; with no farther restriction on those feet, except that the first, 

 third, fifth, and seventh, must not be an Amphibrachys w — w ; while the 

 sixth, on the other hand, must be either an .Amphibrachys or a Proceleus- 

 snaticus w w w w. The latter hemistich resembles the former in every 



* Not " quantity," as erroneously printed in the translation, p. 379. 



