394 On the Epoch of the Gupta Dynasty. [No. 5. 



substance to the same uses,* and possibly the Indian Vedas are 

 indebted for their preservation to this very material ; whether its 

 employment was limited to the population whose dialects were 

 expressed in the Arian character we have no means of saying, but 

 in all probability, if the Northern Indian races knew of its use, the 

 Magadhis would not have remained long deprived of it or some suit- 

 able substitute ; that they also wrote with ink is amply established 

 by the discovery of letters so written on the relic caskets at Sanchi.f 

 I imagine it must be conceded, whether on the indications afforded 

 by inscriptions, coins or Buddhist relics, that the ancient Pali or 

 Magadhi alphabet had once a very extended currency, and likewise 

 that for a lengthened period it retained its separate identity. It 

 occurs in Asoka's edicts at Delhi, J Allahabad, Matia, Bakra, Dhauli 

 and Girnar, its appearance in these several localities§ would, prima 

 facie, imply, either that it was intelligible to the people at large 

 throughout the circle embraced within these geographical bound- 

 aries, or that it was the recognised sacred alphabet of Buddhism : 

 opposed entirely to the latter supposition is the departure from its 

 use, in the Kapurdigiri text of the edict itself, and the modification 

 the language is seen to have been subjected to in some of the Pali 



* Masson in A. A. p. 60 and 84. See also fig. 11, pi. iii. Ibid. Masson con- 

 tinues his remarks on substances used to receive writing : " In one or two instances 

 I have met with inscriptions ; one scratched with a stylet or sharp-pointed imple- 

 ment around a steatite vase extracted from a Tope at Darunta ; another written in 

 ink around an earthen vessel found in a Tope at Hidda ; and a third dotted on a 

 brass vessel." See also Reinaud Memo, sur 1' Inde, p. 305. 



f J. R. A. S. XIII. 110. Bhilsa Topes, 299. 



% Of the two stone pillars at Delhi, one was moved down from near Khizrabad, 

 at the foot of the Himalayas — the other was taken from Mirat — Jour. Arch. Soc. 

 Delhi, 70, 1850. 



§ Other inscriptions in this character occur at — 



1. Sanchi — J. A. S. B. VI. pi. xxvii. page 461 and VII. pi. lxxiii. 562. 



2. Gya — Caves, ditto VI. pi. xxxv. Nos. 2 and 3, page 676, these are of the 

 epoch of Dasaratha who followed Suyasa the immediate successor of Asoka ! 



3. Cuttack— Ud'ayagiri Caves, J. A. S. B. VI. pi, liv. p. 1072. 



4. Ibid — Khandagiri Rock, J. A. S. B. VI. pi. lviii. p. 1080. And we may now 

 add a but slightly modified form of writing as discovered in the Mehentelo inscrip- 

 tion in Ceylon. J. R. A, S. XIII. 175.^ 



