160 Discovery of the name of Antiochus the Great, [Feb. 



Many things are deserving of comment in this short edict. To begin 

 in due order ; — 



The opening words which are equally well preserved in both the 

 Girnar and the Dhauli inscriptions, will be remarked to differ, in the two 

 examples, only in a single letter (disregarding of course the variation of 

 the inflection, which we shall see by and by to be peculiar to the dialect 

 of each place, and constant throughout) ; — the former text reads Savata 

 vijitamhi equivalent to the Sanskrit savatra vijite, ' every where in the 

 conquered (country)' whereas the latter has savata vimatamsi (S. vimatej 

 throughout the inimical (in religion) country*. This difference is incon- 

 siderable ; and both expressions will contrast equally well with apdpa- 

 vantesu (S.apdpavatsuJ ' in the sinless-like,' or ' the provinces containing 

 the believers.' Of the places enumerated as belonging to the latter divi- 

 sion, unfortunately one list only is preserved, and we are unable to identify 

 any of their names with certainty, except the last. Choda may indeed be 

 the Chola kingdom, and Pida the country named in the Brahmanda 

 Puranaf, as Pidika in the same list with Chulica: but in what part of 

 India situated does not very clearly appear. Satyaputo and Ketalaputo 

 are equally unknown ; unless the latter be Ketorapuri of Wilford — 

 hod. Tahneswar. The former seems rather an epithet of some ' holy city* 

 of the time. Our only certain landmark then is Tambapanni, the ancient 

 name of Ceylon, spelt exactly in the same manner as in the Pali text of 

 the Mahdvunsa just published by Mr. Turnour. The Greek name of 

 this island, Taprobane, as Dr. Mill has elsewhere observed^, seems 

 rather to be taken from the Sanskrit Tamra-pdni, which is also the 

 true Singhalese name for the same place. 



But the principal fact which arrests attention in this very curious pro- 

 clamation, is its allusion to Antiochus the Yona, (Sanskrit Yavana) or 

 Greek, king. The name occurs four times over, with only one variation 

 in the spelling, where in lieu of Antiyako we have Antiyoko, a still 

 nearer approach to the Greek. The final o is the regular Pali conver- 

 sion of the Sanskrit nominative masculine termination as, or the Greek 

 os. In the pillar dialect the visarga of the Sanskrit is replaced by 

 the vowel e, as we see in the interlined reading, Antiyahe. Again the 

 interposition of the semivowel y between the two Greek vowels t 

 and o, is exactly what I had occasion to observe in the writing of the 

 words Agathuhlayoj and Puntalawanta for AyadoxAews and iravTaKsovros 

 on the coins. All this evidence would of itself bias my choice to- 



* While correcting the press, I received a revision of the Cuttack inscription, 

 by Mr. Kittoe, in which the word is plainly vijitamsi. 



t A*. Res. VIII. 336. ; Journal As. Soc. Vol- V. 830. 



