370 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 



read from left to right, which is confined to the coins of Pantaleon 

 and Agathokles, who reigned beyond the Indus, but which is the 

 common character of all the other tests of the inscriptions, as well 

 as of all the donative inscriptions of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas. 

 The distinctive peculiarities of these two alphabets are carefully- 

 discussed by General Cunningham, and the transcripts of most of 

 the edicts with the translations are given in full in his work.* 



In 1883, Mr. J. F. Fleet, CLE., was appointed Epigraphist,f with 

 the primary object of preparing Volume III. of the " Corpus 

 Inscriptionum Indicarum," that was to contain the inscriptions of the 

 early Gupta kings. The Gupta volume was completed by Mr. Fleet 

 in 1887, and published the following year in Calcutta. A careful 

 study of the inscriptions enabled Mr. Fleet to fix the period of the 

 early Gupta supremacj^, and also to establish a starting-point from 

 which to work back in developing the Indo-Scythian history. 

 Moreover, through fixing, for the first time, the date of Mihirakula, 

 who, as we learn from the writings of the Chinese pilgrim, Hwen 

 Thsang, played a leading part in early Indian history, Mr. Fleet has 

 furnished the means of adjusting the chronology before and after 

 him of the earty history of Kashmir, and of testing the accuracy of 

 the Chinese accounts of the same early period. 



The principal records in the volume are those of the early Guptas 

 themselves from A.D. 401 to 466, and next, the records of a 

 feudatory family, the Parivrajaka Maharajas, which prove that, 

 though the direct line of the early Gupta dynasty itself may have 

 become extinct, the Gupta dominion still continued, and the name 

 of the Gupta kings was still recognised as a power down to 

 A.D. 528. The person who accomplished the final extinction seems 

 to have been the great king Mihirakula, of Sakala, in the Punjab, 

 and subsequently of Kashmir, whose career in India is so graphically 

 described by Hwen Thsang. Next come the inscriptions of the 



* Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarurc, Vol. I., Inscriptions of Asoka, Prepared by 

 General Cunningham, C.S.I., Calcutta, 1877. The Mansahra inscriptions were 

 discovered subsequently, as -well as the Eainpurwa pillar. A valuable discussion of 

 these inscriptions has been published, in two volumes, under the title, " Les Incriptions 

 de Piyadasi, par E. Senart, Mem. de lTust. " (Paris, 1881-86) ; and detached papers on 

 them by Prof. G. Biihler, LL.D., C.I.E., have appeared in the " Zeitschrift der 

 Deutsch. Morgenland. Gesellschaft," at different dates. 



t On the 17th January 1883. He held the appointment for 3£ years, until the 

 1st June 1886. In August 1881, Dr. Burgess had prepared a "Memorandum on the 

 Collection and Publication of Indian Historical Inscriptions," which he submitted to 

 the Secretary of State, recommending this appointment. 



