1865.] Notes on the Eran Inscriptions. 41 



cords * * is sadly defective in many respects,"* To this I need not 

 add one word of comment. 



Before passing to other things, I take occasion to say, that, contrary 

 to what has been intimated, not in a single instance that has been 

 pointed out, have I " blundered" where Mr. Prinsep " happens to be 

 correct." And was " such a scholar" correct only by hap ? 



At the end of my " Note on Budhagupta" are these words : " My 

 paper on the land-grants of Hastin, and that on the Eran inscriptions, 

 as I did not see the proof-sheets, abound in errors of the press, to say 

 nothing of other faults. The more important will here be rectified, 

 and a few comments interspersed."! Referring to me, the Babu says : 

 " I must, even at the risk of being tedious, adduce my premises for 

 the errors [sic\ in his reading of the Iran inscriptions, to which I take 

 exception. Dr. Hall has attributed most of them to the printers ; but 

 it is difficult to conceive how those scape-goats are to be responsible 

 for the word sansurata, which Dr. Hall altered into sansurabhic with- 

 out any authority. * * Regarding the elegant simile of a king 

 electing his wife like a maiden her husband, the Doctor says, , 'X &c. &c. 



My " bulky" list of corrigenda and addenda, as the Babu styles it, 

 takes up just twenty-one lines ; and within that space, I set sdnka 

 and Surdshtras, for s'anka and Surdshtra, to the account of the printer : 

 and this is the entire foundation for the charge that I have attempted 

 to disown my errors. 



The Babu's clause bearing on sansuratam certainly stands in need 

 of readjustment. The word was Mr. Prinsep's, not mine. 



And now for the " elegant simile," which is altogether the Babu's 

 own property. I first printed : " Who, by the will of the Ordainer, 

 acquired, like as a maiden sometimes elects her husband, the splendour 

 of royalty." This I corrected to : " Providentially preferred by Royal 

 Prosperity, as it had been a maiden who elects her husband." No- 

 where have I spoken of " a king electing his wife like a maiden her 

 husband :" and whence does it appear that I took " the splendour of 

 royalty" for anything but an unfleshly personification ? 



* Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1861, p. 268. 

 f Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1861, p. 149. 

 % Journal As. Soc. Beng., 1862, p. 394. 



