1050 Inscriptions on the columns at Delhi, fyc. [Dec. 



tical Pdli medium. With all my unfeigned predisposition to defer to 

 your practised judgment and established reputation in oriental research, 

 it would be uncandid in me if I did not avow, that I retain the opinion 

 that the medium of analysis employed by me has been (imperfect as 

 that analysis is) the more appropriate and legitimate one. 



The thorough investigation of this subject is of such paramount 

 importance and deep interest, and as (if I have rightly read the con- 

 cluding sentence of " the fifth inscription round the shaft of Feroz's 

 pillar," which appears for the first time in the July journal,) we have 

 yet five* more similar columns to discover in India, I venture to suggest 

 that you should publish my translation also, together with the text in 

 the ancient character, transposed literatim from my romanized ver- 

 sionf. Future examiners of these monuments of antiquity will thus 

 have the two versions to collate with the originals, and be able to de- 

 cide which of the two admits of the closest approximation to the text. 



In the present note I shall confine myself to a critical examination 

 of the first sentence only of the northern inscription, which will serve 

 to show how rigidly I have designed to adhere to the rules of the 

 Pdli grammar in my translation of these inscriptions ; and then pro- 

 ceed to explain the historical authority I have recently discovered for 

 identifying Piyadasi, the recorder of these inscriptions, with Dham- 

 masoko, the supreme monarch of India, the convert to, and great 

 patron of, Buddhism, in the fourth century before our era. 



The first sentence of the northern inscription, after the name of the 

 recorder and the specification of the year of his reign, I read thus : 



Hidatapdlite dtisapatipddaye, ananta agdyd dhanmakdmatdyd, agdya parikhdyd, 

 agdyd sdsandyd, agena bhayena, agena usdhena ; esdchakho mama anusathiyd. 



Although the orthography as well as syntax, of your reading, viz. hidatapdlite 

 dusan, and which you construe " the faults that have been cherished in my heart," 

 are both defective, a slight and admissible alteration into " haday apatite dose" 

 would remove those objections, if other difficulties did not present themselves, 

 which will be presently explained, and which, I fear, are insuperable. 



The substantive " patipddayeX" however, which you convert into a verb, does 

 not, I am confident, in the Pdli language, admit of the rendering " I acknowledge 



* We know of five, therefore three remain — the Bhittri may be a fragment of 

 one ; that at Bakrabad, and one near Ghazeepore are without inscriptions.— Ed. 



+• To this we must demur : we have examined the greater part from perfect 

 facsimiles, and cannot therefore consent to publish a version which we know to 

 deviate materially from the original text..—ED. 



J The objection to consider patipddaye as a verb does not seem very consistent 

 with the three examples given, all of which are verbs — patipajj&mdli (the double 

 jj of which represents the Sanskrit dy not d) S.pratipadydma iti or in dtrnani pada 

 dmahe ; — and twice, patipajjitubanti (S. Pratipadyatavyam iti). Pada is certainly 



