1855.] On the Mpoch of the Gupta Dynasty. 395 



transcripts to meet apparently the local dialects of eacli site.* On 

 coins, it can scarcely be thought to hold any religious signification, 

 but, the available medallic testimony contributes largely to the 

 inference, that these characters formed the ordinary medium of 

 record in the majority of the states included within the limits above 

 adverted to. In this alphabet exclusively are expressed the legends 

 of numerous series of coins of purely local type,t its characters are 

 found associated on the one part with the Greek of Agathocles and 

 PantaleonJ and its phonetic signs are conjoined with counterpart 

 Arian legends on certain classes of the Behat coins.§ The Bud- 

 dhist relics do little towards elucidating the expansive spread 

 of this style of writing, || but — if rightly interpreted — they illustrate 

 in a striking manner the antiquity of its ordinary employment in 

 its even then fixed form. 



Another point of view from which this Palaeographic enquiry 

 has to be regarded, is the influence exercised by the conterminous 

 alphabet of Semitic origin — that equally served to express modified 

 forms of the same speech. This character — also claiming the highest 

 antiquity — existed as indigenous South of the Hindu Kush'jf and 

 extended over the Southern base of the Himalaya as far as the Doab 

 of the Jumna and Ganges. This style of writing, though defective 

 in its Semitic organization, would seem to have found full favour 

 in its day and to have been very extensively employed, as is proved 

 by its extant remains in inscriptions,* on coins, strips of copper, 

 relic cylinders, &c.f 



Its currency in India proper is shewn in the legends discovered 



* Prinsep towards the conclusion of his review of the various lat inscriptions 

 observes, " The vernacular language of India at that period, then, varied in dif- 

 ferent provinces : — it approached more to the Sanskrit in the North-west ; diverged 

 from it in Magadha and Kalinga : — but it was in both places essentially what i^ 

 now called Pali. * * There is no trace of genuine prakrit in either of the 

 dialects." VII. 280. 



f J. A. S. B. IV. pi. x. and xxxv. and VII. pi. lx. and lxi. 



t J. A. S. B. V. pi. xxxv. 8 and 9 ; A. A. VI. 7, 8, 9 and 11. 



§ J. A. S. B. VII. pi. xxxii. 



|| J. R. A.S. XIII. p. 108. " Bhilsa Topes," p. 299, &c. 



% A. A. p. 243. * J. R. A. S. XII. p. 153. | A. A. pi. ii, 



3 f 



