1S37.] Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions. 673 



For the translation, instead of adopting Wilkins' words, I present 

 if anything a more literal rendering by Sa'roda'prasad Chakravarti, 

 a boy of the Sanskrit college, who had studied in the English class late- 

 ly abolished. I do this to shew how useful the combination of Sanskrit 

 and English grammatically studied by these young men might have 

 been made both to Europeans and to their own country*. 



Translation. 



" May the foot of Devi make your fortunes prosperous and successful 

 in proportion to your firm devotedness to her ; (which foot) reproaching 

 all the splendour of the well-blown waterlily by its own beauty, was put 

 with contempt on the head of Mahisha'sura (a daitya) (and which) 

 wears a sonorous nepurf, and seems fringed with matted hairs from the 

 bright rays of its nails (and which) is the spring of all wealth. 



There was a celebrated raja named Yajna Varma, who became very 

 great for his performing a desired ceremony named Surabha ; whose 



* The same boy assisted Captain Troyer in the translation of many Sanskrit 

 class books. It does certainly appear a strange act of inconsistency that the very 

 party in the education committee who have deprecated all other but English 

 instruction should have abolished English tuition in the Sanskrit division of the 

 college, where it had been introduced in the face of many prejudices and difficul- 

 ties by Mr. Wilson ! It would not be fair to suppose that by depriving the 

 poor Sanskrit students of this source of utility and of future employment, in 

 addition to taking away their scholarship stipends, an additional but secret shaft 

 was pierced to undermine the fabric which it was thought imprudent to over- 

 throw by direct abolition ; yet surely such must be the effect ; and the opportunity 

 will soon be totally lost of transferring into the classical, the pervading, language 

 of India, any share of the learning of the west. No more convincing example 

 of the fallacy of trusting only to a vernacular which varies in every district of 

 this vast country, can be adduced, than the case of the astronomical discussion 

 now carrying on by the pandits of Bhopal and Puna. — The first treatises of Mr. 

 Wilkinson's pandits were utterly unintelligible here from the admixture of 

 Maratha or the Bhasha of Central India, whereas by confining themselves to the 

 classical tongue, their arguments are now calculated to carry conviction from 

 one end of India to the other. 



f A tinkling ornament for the feet. 



