1855.] On the Epoch of the Gupta Dynasty. 391 



well aware how much the Numismatic characters of one and the 

 same alphabet are liable to differ from their lapidary equivalents ! 

 So, I will simplify the question by confining myself to the style 

 of writing used upon rocks, stone pillars and copper-plates. 



Major Cunningham seems disposed to admit of but one single 

 element, as liable to affect the march of alphabetical development — 

 that of time — but to show how fallacious any notion of a necessarily 

 progressive change would be, I may call attention to the very slight 

 modification, that is seen to have taken place in the local alphabets 

 of Guzrat, &c. during ten or eleven centuries — and I would enquire, 

 if his argument is to hold good, how much of difference ought we 

 to be able to detect between the alphabet of the Yallabhi copper- 

 plates, which he would date in the 6fch century A. D. and the style 

 of writing in use in the "Western Caves, which is almost identical 

 with the characters of the Buddhists of the 5th century B. C. And 

 yet, a reference to Prinsep's facsimiles* will show how essentially 

 limited the alterations effected by this lapse of ages really were ! 

 Jas. Prinsep, as we have seen, was prepared — with his usual frank- 

 ness — to concede that there were other causes likely to influence these 

 alphabetical mutations — though his original idea had clearly been 

 to assign all impulse in this direction to the effect of time. Had he 

 lived to perfect his theory, I doubt not, that he would have accepted 

 other agencies as playing an important part in the results to be 

 accounted for ; prominent among these would, I think, have to be 

 placed the advance or retardation due to nationality or other local 

 influences ; otherwise it would be difficult indeed to account for the 

 various separate alphabets that we find in all their independent 

 diversity at a later period of Indian progress. f 



* J. A. S. B. VII. pi. xiii. 



f As my readers may be glad to learn what Al-Biruni says on the state of the 

 varieties of writing current in his day. I append the passage entire. 



" On compte plusieurs ecritures dans I' Inde. La plus repandue est celle qui 

 porte le nom de siddha-matraca (tfJy ^ *>-*>) ou substance parfaite ; elle est usitee 

 dans le Cachemire et a Benares, qui sont maintenant les deux principaux foyers 

 scientifiques du pays. Ou se sert egalement de cette ecriture dans le Madhya-Deca, 

 appele aussi du nom d' Aryavartta. Dans le Malva, on fait usage d'une ecriture 

 appelee nagara (^^) : celle-ci est disposee de la meme maniere que la pre- 

 miere ; mais les formes en sont differentes. Une troisieme Ecriture, nommee 



