152 Note on the Taxila Inscription. [No. 2, 
stances, presumed to give expression to opinions opposed, even though 
but slightly, to his views. But the subject of Bactro-Pali inscrip- 
tions is involved in so much difficulty, and has as yet derived so little 
benefit from the researches of oriental scholars that I feel convinced 
that the following contribution towards its elucidation, insignificant 
as it 1s, will not be altogether useless to future enquirers. 
To the general scope and purport of the Taxila inscription as inter- 
preted by General Cunningham, I have no objection to offer. They 
accord pretty closely with a version that I had prepared on the 
receipt of the last number of the Journal, but which I could not, owing 
to want of leisure, complete, for presentation to the Society. I think, 
however, that some of the explanations and inferences of the General are 
evidently inadmissible. In the first line of the record he reads, after 
the name of the King Mogasa, the name of the Greek month Pane- 
mos, but as the only letters visible are p, m ands, with a blank 
between the p, and the m, the deduction is by no means such as can 
claim immediate confidence. In all the Ariano-Pali inscriptions that 
have hitherto been decyphered the words for month, year and day 
have all been taken from the Sanskrita. The system of naming days 
according to the moon’s age is peculiarly Sanskritic, and the division 
of the month into the light and the dark halves of the moon, is of 
Indian or Sanskritic origin. A priori, therefore, one would expect that 
the Taxila tablet should have the name of an Indian and not a Greek 
month, and this expectation is strengthened by the fact that in the 
Manikyala inscription, the General has himself read the name of the 
seventh Hindu month Kdrtika; and we have his authority for the 
last Hindu month Chaitra in the Yusafzai inscription from Ohind, 
and for the fourth month S‘rdvana in the Punjtar record from the 
same locality. 
It is to be admitted that in the Hidda inscription he has read the 
name of apellaios, and in the Wardak vase, the word artamiseyasa, 
but those readings are yet open to question and cannot, therefore, be 
cited as authorities. 
The Hidda record, according to the General, opens with the words,* 
Samvatsaraye Athavisatihi 20, 4, 4, Mise apilesa ekavisatihi, bat 
on referring to the facsimile in the Ariana Antiqua (p. 262,) I find 
the only letters visible are 4, 4, dZdse apeusa chidasa, the variants 
being w for o in the first word, and J, ¢ or v for uw in the second. The 
* Ante, p. 144. 
