156 Discover]/ of the name of Anttochus the Great, [Feb. 



VII. — Discover}/ of the name of Antiochus the Great, in two of the 



edicts (>/Asoka, king of India. By James Prtnsep, Sec. fyc. 



[Re;id at the Meeting of the 7th March.] 



As long as the study of Indian antiquities confines itself to the illus- 

 tration of Indian history it must be confessed that it possesses little attrac- 

 tion for the general student, who is apt to regard the labour expended on 

 the disentanglement of perplexing and contradictory mazes of fiction, 

 as leading only to the substitution of vague and dry probabilities for 

 poetical, albeit extravagant, fable. But the moment any name or event 

 turns up in the course of such speculations offering a plausible point of 

 connection between the legends of India and the rational histories of 

 Greece or Rome, — a collision between the fortunes of an eastern and a 

 western hero, — forthwith a speedy and spreading interest is excited which 

 cannot be satisfied until the subject is thoroughly sifted by the exami- 

 nation of all the ancient works, western and eastern, that can throw 

 concurrent light on the matter at issue. Such was the engrossing in- 

 terest which attended the identification of Sandracottus with Chandra- 

 gupta in the days of Sir Wm. Jones : such the ardour with which the 

 Sanskrit was studied, and is still studied, by philologists at home after 

 it was discovered to bear an intimate relation to the classical languages 

 of ancient Europe. Such more recently has been the curiosity excited, 

 on Mr. Turnour's throwing open the hitherto sealed page of the Bud- 

 dhist historians to the development of Indian monuments and Pauranic 

 records. 



The discovery I was myself so fortunate as to make, last year, of 

 the alphabet of the Delhi pillar inscription, led immediately to results of 

 hardly less consideration to the learned world. Dr. Mill regarded these 

 inscriptions as all hut certainly demonstrated relics of the classical 

 periods of Indian literature. This slight remainder of doubt has been 

 since removed by the identification of Piyadasi as Asoka, which we 

 also owe to Mr. Turnour's successful researches; and, dating from 

 an epoch thus happily achieved, we have since succeeded in tracing the 

 name of the grandson of the same king, Dasaratha, at Gaya in the 

 same old character; and the names of Nanda and Ai'las, and perhaps 

 Vijaya in the Kalinga. caves: while on Bactrian coins we have been 

 rewarded with finding the purely Greek names of Agathocles and 

 Pantaleon, faithfully rendered in the same ancient alphabet of the 

 Hindus. 



I have now to bring to the notice of the Society another link of the 

 same chain of discovery, which will, if I do not deceive myself, create a 



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