426 Remarks on the Taxila Inscription. [No. 4, 
imphed. There is nothing therefore to prevent their being taken 
together if they can be reasonably connected. If however these phrases 
apply with the date of the month, to the word tithydm understood 
it can only be as Bahuvrthi or descriptive compounds ; and it is diffi- 
cult to see how the words “ day,” and “ year, month and day,” can in 
any way make a descriptive epithet of a ¢z¢hi or “lunar day.” Pro- 
fessor Hall’s rendering “ on that 1. e. the aforesaid lunar day and on 
the day of the week therewith coincident” is an amplification which 
I cannot extract from “ divasa-ptrvayam ;” nor can I see my way to 
his rendering of the longer compound “on that lunar day specified 
with the year, month, and week day aforesaid.” The last of the above 
quoted passages gives, at first sight, some support to Professor Hall’s 
theory. Having amended the reading, as above proposed, we have 
elasyam pirvdyam which might fairly be taken as applying to tithydm 
if we could conceive such an expression as “ aforesaid” to be required 
or appropriate. Unfortunately however for the theory, the date does 
not refer toa #itht or lunar day, being expressed in the masculine, 
“ Phalquna-divase das'ame,’ with which, it is obvious. the feminine 
“ etasyam pirvayam” can have no grammatical agreement. This seems 
conclusive proof that the expression cannot signify “ aforesaid,” there 
being nothing aforesaid with which it agrees. 
Again, in our Taxila Inscription, the phrase “ etaye purvaye,” the 
exact equivalent of “ etasyim purvdyam,” is used after a date which 
General Cunningham and I have independently concurred in reading 
as Panemus, and it is obvious, that the technical ¢ithi of Hindu Chro- 
nology can have no application to a Macedonian date. 
I have entered thus at length imto the reasons which induce me to 
dissent from the proposed interpretation, because I am anxious to 
arrive at the true solution of the phrase; and because the respect 
due to the learning of Professor Hall demanded a full statement of 
the grounds for my dissent from his rendermg. What then is the 
signification of the phrase? The Dictionaries afford no satisfactory 
information. As an adjective the word pérva means “ first, prior ;” 
as a feminine noun pérvd, it signifies ‘the East.” These sienifica- 
tions are clearly inapplicable. We must therefore, if possible, deduce 
a meaning, consistent with the primitive sense of the word and the 
context of the passages in which it occurs. After careful consider- 
ation of the different sentences I am of opinion that the word is 
