1863. | Remarks on the Taxila Bactro-Pali Inseription. 133° 
temarks on the Baotro-Paut Inscription from Taxtia.—By 
Major-General A. CUNNINGHAM. 
Thirty years have elapsed since the first Bactro-Pali inscriptions 
were discovered by Ventura, Court, and Masson,—and during that 
long period but little progress has been made in their decipherment 
Certain titles such as Maharaja and Chhatrapa, or “ King” and 
“ Satrap,” and particular terms, such as Bhagavata S’arira, or “ relics 
of Buddha,” mdéa-pita, or “mother and father,” puwéra, “son,” and 
vthdra, “a monastery,’ have long been known; but the greater 
portion of these records still continued to baffle all attempts at any 
satisfactory rendering of their contents. Several of these inscriptions 
are dated, and so far back as January 1848 I was the first to make 
out the Hindu months of Srdvana and Chaitra, and during last year 
I succeeded in reading the names of the Macedonian months, Arte- 
misios and Apellaios. ‘The figured dates, however, still remained a 
riddle ; but the recent discovery of Mr. Roberts’s Taxila inscription, 
with its date written as well as figured, in characters much better 
defined than is usual in these cursive records has enabled Professor 
Dowson to unravel the mystery of the Bactrian numerical figures. I 
am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Grote for the copy of this 
inscription, which has been sent out to India by Mr. Thomas, with 
the avowed object of obtaining independent translations in anticipa- 
tion of the receipt of Professor Dowson’s rendering of the text.* The 
following is a version of such parts of this important record as I 
have been able to make out during the short period that I have had 
it before me. Although this rendering is imperfect, yet I would fain 
hope that it may still be of some service towards the object which 
Mr. Thomas had in view, when he forwarded the inscription to 
India. My discovery of the Bactro-Pali symbol used for the pre- 
fixed r,in such important words as purvva, sarvva, and dchdryya, 
and in the names of the Macedonian month Artemisios, and the 
_ Hindu month Kartika, seems to me to be of sufficient value to war- 
rant the publication of this translation, as it may assist more com- 
petent scholars hereafter in rendering versions of other inscriptions. 
* Vide vol. xxxi. p. 532. 
