1858.] . Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 75 



its origiu. The inscription is in the well-known Kutila characters, 

 and records that the bull was consecrated by Sri Suphandi Bhat- 

 taraka son of Bhimakaulla, for the purpose of securing progeny. 

 The language is simple, but owing to mutilations, two or three 

 words are not legible. The second figure of the date is indistinct, 

 and the word Samvat has the final consonant wanting, which is 

 owing perhaps to an accidental omission on the part of the engraver, 

 or more probably to a fondness for abbreviation, as I have noticed a 

 similar omission in two or three other inscriptions. In the present 

 day the word is generally written without the last two consonants 

 and their intermediate vowel. 



The subject of the inscription offers little for comment. The 

 practice of dedicating bulls either alive or in effigy to secure progeny 

 is a matter of no interest to the antiquarian, while the individual 

 who consecrated the bull is not an historical personage ; but the 

 circumstance of the Kutila character being used in an inscription 

 of the 8th ceutury, affords an important subject for the considera- 

 tion of the Indian Archaeologist. 



The absence of dates in many of the inscriptions found in India 

 led the late Mr. James Prinsep to devise a system of palaeographic 

 chronology in which the style of the writing was taken as an index 

 to the age of the document in which it was found. The system was 

 matured after a careful examination of a large number of ancient in- 

 scriptions and coins, and recorded in a table (ante vol. VII. p. 276, 

 plate xiii.) in which different centuries have each a particular set of 

 characters assigned to it. According to this table the Kutila characters 

 are placed against the 9th century. It is evident, however, that Mr. 

 Prinsep intended his table to be merely tentative, and open to consi- 

 derable corrections and modifications ; for it is difficult to believe 

 that he would take each particular set of characters to belong to one 

 particular century and no more, or that the same character should 

 be common over all the Sanskritic Cis-Vindhyan regions for a given 

 period. Nothing is more common than a single style of writing 

 spreading over two or three centuries, or predominating in certain 

 regions, while it is dying out in others. The history of the Euglish 

 and the German characters affords a singular instance in point. 

 Mr. Prinsep was fully aware of this, and has accordingly assigned 



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