6&6 Interpretation of ike inscription [July, 



Translation of the Inscription on the Southern compartment. 

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

 year of my anointment. The following animals shall not be put to 

 death ; the parrot> the maina (or thrush), the wild duck of the wilder- 

 ness, the goose, the bull-faced owl, the vulture, the bat, the ambdka- 

 pillika, the raven, and the common croW, the vedaveyaha, the adjutant, 

 the sankujamava> the ka4hatasayaka, the panasasesimala, the sdndaka, 



Line, Transcript of the Inscription on the South compartment. 



1 Devdnampiya piyadasi Laja hevam dhd. Saddavisati vasa 



2 abhisitename 1. Imdnijdtdni avadhiydni katdni seyathd 2. 



3 Suke, sdlikd 3, drane-chakdvdke, hafisa, nandimukhe 4, gerdtt 5 



4 jatukd, ambd kapilika 6, dadi, anathi kamave 7, vedaviyake 8, 



1. The words it/am dhamma lipi likhapitd are here to be understood ; other- 

 wise the abstaining from animal Food, and the preservation of animal life pre- 

 scribed below must be limited to the year specified, and must be regarded as an 

 edict of penance obligatory on the prince himself for that particular period. 



2. In Sanskrit this sentence will run ^rfif <5TT<TTf*TlT^JTf«T ?pnf*f W: 

 *W. The Radhia and Mathia versions have avadhyani, the y being subjoined, [) 

 both here and in the two subsequent instances of its occurrence. 



3. ^nfr;«ffT a species of maina. The classical name of this bird, turdus salica, 

 follows the vernacular orthography of the inscription. 



4. In Sanskrit ^f^^j^sR^Toff ^^T «Ff^<5'*sl ! tne firSt of the three is precisely 

 1 the wild-duck of the wilderness J the modern chdkvn-chakwa, (anas casaca, the 

 brahmany duck) — the last is not to be found in dictionaries, but I render it 

 1 owl' on the authority of Kama'laka'nt who says rightly that this bird may 

 alone challenge the title of bull-faced I' 



5. The nearest Sanskrit ornithological synonyme to yerd a is fa^r the yiddh 

 Or vulture, which I have accordingly adopted. Jatuka, the bat, is the same in 

 Sanskrit, snTr^TT. 



6. Ambd kapilikd is unknown as a bird. The name may be compounded of the 

 Sanskrit words ^fcT mother, and 3R"faf%ejrr> a tree bearing seed like pepper, 

 (pothos officinalis perhaps therefore some spotted bird may have received the 

 epithet. 



7. The next two n&mes are equally unknown : but the former may represent 

 the dandi kdk ^f^TT^r, or raven of Ben gal ; and the latter in this case may be 

 safely interpreted the common crow, ' the thing of no value/ ^f«nq^nj*, as tne 

 word imports. 



8. The next word vedaveyake may be easily Sanskritized as gfr ^raqp y 

 (disbelieving the vedas) but such a bird is unknown at the present day. 



