38 On some Siamese Insertions. [No. 1, 



It is said in Siamese history, that Phra Puiang changed the succession 

 of the series, in which the two cycles intersected each other, and since 

 that time the Siamese haye continued to observe two festivals of the 

 new year. 



Notes on the JEran Inscriptions, heing extracts from a letter to the 



Editor. — By Professor F. E. Hall. 



[Received 4th January, 1864.] 



In the volume of your Journal for 1861, pp. 14 — 22, is a paper 

 of mine, entitled " The Inscriptions of Erikaina, now Eran, rede- 

 ciphered and retranslated," dated at Eran, Dec. 31, 1860. 



Writing at Saugor, April 30, 1861, I recurred* to an expression in 

 one of the forementioned inscriptions, which I was inclined to read 

 sansurabhu, and not sansuratam, as Mr. Prinsep read it. 



When a second time at Eran, Feb. 26, 1862, I observed : " Four 

 months after my first visit to Eran, writing under the guidance of my 

 facsimile copy, I said of what looked to me like sansurabhu" f &c. 



* Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1861, p. 150. 



f Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1862, p. 127. I then go on to say that my 

 old reading, sansurabhu, must, possibly, be exchanged for sansurdtri. To 

 bespeak trust in my decipherment of the Eran inscriptions, I had formerly 

 said : " Standing before the originals, I compared my facsimiles, letter by 

 letter, with those that have been lithographed ; and every, the slightest dis- 

 similarity of the copies, was patiently tested by the perishing archetypes." 

 Thus I wrote when first at Eran. Afterwards, at Saugor, April 30, 1861 , I 

 noted that my sansurabhu should have been described as " doubtful in its 

 penultimate syllable, and very doubtful in its final." With these words 

 before him, Babu Eajendralal Mitra declared himself " disposed to think" 

 my lection " the offspring of an illusion." Later still, Jan. 1, 1862, I said : 

 " I have far from intimated any confidence in the correctness of my read- 

 ing ; and I have no partiality for it whatever. The fact is, simply, that the 

 original symbols looked to me, in the dilapidated condition in which I found 

 them, rather like the constituents of sansurabhu than like anything else." 

 At last, Feb. 26, 1862, dating from Eran, I wrote : " For the second time 

 I have just read the old inscriptions here, on the column and on the gigantic 

 stone boar. It has caused me no surprise to find that my former decipher- 

 ments of them admit of a few corrections." On this the Babu ejaculates : 

 " No surprise indeed after the ' letter by letter' comparison !" This surprise 

 at my absence of surprise I have no doubt is genuine ; and it betrays, to 

 those concerned, a rather interesting piece of psychology. 



The Babu speaks of " what was given with so much positivity as san- 

 surabhu." Where have I been at all positive about it? It is true, that, 



