JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 45.— September, 1835. 



I. — Account of the Inscriptions upon two sets of Copper Plates, found in 

 the Western part of Gujerdt. By W. H. Wathen, Esq. Persian 

 Secretary to the Bombay Government. 



[In a letter to the Secretary of the Asiatic Society] 



Several years since, I procured two sets of copper inscribed plates, 

 one of which had been discovered by some laborers employed in dig- 

 ging the foundations of a house at Danduca, in the Peninsula of 

 Gujerdt ; and the other in a similar manner, at Bhavanagar, in the 

 same province : the inscriptions being, however, in a character un- 

 known to the learned on this side of India, I found it impossible at 

 that time to decypher them. 



Encouraged, however, by the very interesting discoveries brought 

 to public notice in your valuable Journal, as connected with the 

 hitherto unknown character of the inscriptions on the Allahabad 

 pillar, and the recent success of the Reverend Mr. Stevenson, I 

 again endeavoured to decypher the two inscriptions, in which I deriv- 

 ed much assistance from the alphabet given in your number for 

 March, 1834; and having observed a repetition of the same letters 

 in many parts of the inscription, I concluded these were the titles 

 preceding the names of the kings of the dynasty, to which the 

 prince making the grant belonged. 



In consequence, I found from your key the words Raja (j^I ), and 

 looking for Mahd, I discovered that the (H) of the inscription was 

 m, instead of sh, which the alphabet given in the Journal would 

 have made it. The title Paramdswara next struck me, and led to 

 the discovery of Parma Mahesvara, and gave me a clue to the (£j) p, 

 of the character used ; I had previously made out Svasti, of the com- 

 3 Q 



