1837.] Udayagiri and Khandgiri in Cuttack. 1077 



I discovered at once the incorrectness of the facsimile, moreover 

 that it was only of part of a very extensive inscription. 



I found a great many smaller inscriptions in the different caves all 

 of which I transcribed. (See the preceding notice.) 



Having no means of erecting a scaffolding, added to the limited 

 leave granted me, I was obliged to defer the agreeable task of copying 

 the great inscription till a future opportunity, which unfortunate cir- 

 cumstances prevented till the latter end of November, when having 

 previously sent on people to make preparations I followed by dawk. 

 After a whole day's hard work, I transcribed the most part of the great 

 inscription and re-compared all the minor ones; I worked for upwards 

 of an hour by torch-light and returned to cantonments, having travel- 

 led 38 miles out and home again. 



ces very rudely sculptured, and the whole exhibits a faint and humble resem- 

 blance, in miniature, to the celebrated cavern temples in the south-west of 

 India. The rude and miserable apartments of the palace, are now occupied by 

 byragis and mendicants of different sects, who state that the place had its origin 

 in the time of Buddha, and that it was last inhabited by the rani of the famous 

 raja Lalat Indra Kesari, a favourer of the Buddhist religion. Many odd 

 fables are related of the scrapes into which she was led by her heretical notions, 

 and of the way in which her conversion to the orthodox system of worship was 

 at last effected. 



Farther up the same hill, on the overhanging brow of a large cavern, one 

 meets with an ancient inscription cut out of the sandstone rock, in the very 

 identical character which occurs on the pillars at Delhi, and which as yet has 

 been only very partially decyphered. Having been enabled to obtain an exact 

 facsimile of this interesting monument by the assistance of Colonel Mackenzie, 

 whom I conducted to the spot in 1820, I shall annex the same to the Appendix 

 of this paper. There are I think two eminently remarkable circumstances con- 

 nected with the character used in the above inscription. The first is the close 

 resemblance of some of the letters to those of the Greek alphabet, and the second 

 the occurrence of it on sundry ancient monuments situated in widely distant 

 quarters of India. In support of the first assertion, I need only point the 

 attention of the reader to those of the characters which are exactly similar to 

 the Greek on, sigma, lambda, chi, delta, epsilon, and a something closely resem- 

 bling the figure of the digamma. With regard to the second, any reader who 

 will take the trouble of comparing the Khand Giri inscription with that on 

 Feroz Shah's lat at Delhi, on the column at Allahabad, on the lat at Bhim 

 Sen, in Sarun, a part of the elephanta and a part of the Ellora inscriptions, will 

 find that the characters are identically the same. A portion of the Ellora and 

 Sahette inscription written in the above character, has been decyphered by the 

 learning and ingenuity of Major Welford, aided by the discovery of a key to 

 the unravelling of ancient inscriptions in the possession of a learned brahmin, 

 vide the eleventh article of Vol. V. Asiatic Researches ; and it is to be regretted 

 that the same has not been further applied to decyphering the Delhi and other 

 6 x 



