1837.] on the Columns of Delhi, Allahabad, Bctiah, %c. 581 



Translation of the Inscription of the North compartment. 

 Thus spake king Devanampiya Piyadasi : — In the twenty- seventh 

 year of my anointment, I have caused this religious edict to be 

 published in writing. I acknowledge and confess the faults that have 

 been cherished in my heart. From the love of virtue, by the side of 

 which all other things are as sins — from the strict scrutiny of sin, 

 — and from a fervent desire to be told of sin : — by the fear of sin and 

 by very enormity of sin : — by these may my eyes be strengthened and 

 confirmed (in rectitude). 



Line, Transcript of the Inscription on the North compartment. 



1 Devdnampiya piyadasi Ldja evam &hd. Saddavisativasa 



2 abhisitename, iyam Dhammalipi likhdpitd 1. 



3 Hidatapdlite dusampdtipddaye 2. Annata agdyd dhammakdmatdyd 



4 agdya palikhdyd, agdya sususdyd, agena bhayend, 



5 agena usihend, esa chakhomama anusathiyd 3. 



1. The opening sentence has been fully explained and commented on in the 

 preceding Journal, page 469. 



2. The whole of the northern tablet, although composed of words individually 

 easy of translation, presents more difficulties in a way of a satisfactory interpre- 

 tation thm any of the others. This first sentence particularly was unintelligible 

 to Ratna Paula, who for Dusampati would have substituted Dasabala, ' the tea 

 (elephant) powered' a name of Buddha. The pandit's reading seems more to the 

 purpose, ^f^RTfarf (or nearer still to the text) ^iffi: TTlfatf^nf *f?Htt^, 

 * I declare or confess the sins cherished in my heart ;' *JT^I being the proper 

 or regular form as opposed to the common form of the verb according to the 

 rules obtaining in the Pali, as in the Sanskrit, language. 



3. The sense of this passage, although at first sight obvious enough, recedes 

 as the construction is grammatically examined. I originally supposed that 

 Annata was meant for Ananta, the anuswara being placed by accident on the 

 left, and had adopted the nearest literal approach to the text in Sanskrit for the 

 translation s — 'qWWWfqT VlhnillfTO *TO VtfrWX ^ST9 JS^W WT 

 M$«T ^f •T^f < 5JT{«f ^«f ^TCR?? ^^jS^TW, viz. : ' through the examination, 

 &c.of the sinfulness of the numberless sins connected with the worldly passions;' but 

 in this it was necessary to omit two long vowels (in parikhdyd and sususdyd to place 

 them in the third case. By making them of the fifth case, (in Sanskrit the nyabalope 

 panchami) and by reading Anyata, every letter can be exactly preserved with the 

 sense given in the present translation ; thus : WffWV wilWTOW ^W? 

 qftaT^T^r*? ipsniTOT ; the rest as before. In this the most doubtful words 

 are usritena and chaksho ; the latter Ratna Paula would break into cha-kho, 

 1 and certainly' (kho for khalu) . the former may be replaced by <3<UTT% i rT, ' by per- 

 severance,' but this is hardly an improvement. It is also a question whether 

 Dhamma kdma is to be applied in a good sense as ' intense desire of virtue,' or 

 in a bad, as ' dominion of the sensual passions/ 



4 p 



