THE COINAGE OF TTBET. 17 



The characters on the seal appear to be in the old Uigur form of Mongolian 

 characters, which are written perpendicularly from above downwards and the lines 

 follow from left to right. These Uigur characters, from which the Mongolian character 

 has been derived, were themselves derived from the Syriac, having been brought to 

 the Uigurs by Nestorian Missionaries ; while the arrangement in vertical lines was 

 adopted from the Chinese practice. 1 



The Dalai Lama's seal is the mark of sovereignty in Tibet, and it would be very 

 natural that the Tibetan Government might wish it to be reproduced, or at least 

 indicated, on the coins, which were to be current in Tibet. The characters on the 

 coin are not any of them a correct reproduction of characters on the seal , which might 

 be expected from workmen who did not understand what the characters were 

 intended to represent, and the resemblances suggest that the Newar artificers took 

 the characters as running horizontally and not vertically, which is also natural ; as 

 they would assume the lines to be horizontal, as in the Indian and Tibetan languages, 

 with which they were acquainted. 



That the Newar coiners were in the habit of imitating characters which they did 

 not understand, and consequently rendering them meaningless, is also shewn by the 

 fact that such meaningless imitations of Persian characters, with the object of imita- 

 ting the titles of the coins of the Moghul Emperors, are found on other Newar coins. 

 An example of this is found on both the obverse and reverse of the coin of J ay a 

 Pratapa Malla (Plates IV(A) and IV(B),fig. 9) and is of frequent occurrence on Newar 

 coins. 



As regards the inscription on the Dalai Lama's seal being in the Uigur character, 

 I would note that Colonel Waddell gives a copy of the seal 2 and describes it as " in 

 square Indian characters." I think there is no doubt that he is wrong in this. He 

 has also printed the seal, in the example he gives of it, with the lines of characters 

 running horizontally and not vertically which they should do, and in which position 

 it is always affixed. If so printed with the lines of characters running horizontally, 

 there are some of the characters which bear a superficial resemblance to certain Indian 

 characters. 



As I have already said, the Newar artificers appear to have made a similar mis- 

 take, expecting a horizontal script and not a vertical one ; and, if the seal be looked 

 at in that direction, as indicated by the arrow, the resemblance of characters on 

 the coins to some of those on the seal will be at once noticed. 



This character of the Dalai Lama's seal is called in Tibetan Shintu-Jod-pa or 

 " perfectly finished," and resembles the Uigur characters, known in Tibet as Gyaser 

 Yige, or "Great golden letters," and is found in almost all old seals of Tibet. 1 



There are also certain distinctive symbols on these coins which do not occur on 



1 Prof. B. Jiilg on "The Mongolian Language," in the Encyclopedia Britt., Vol. XVI , p. 150. 



2 Lhasa and its Mysteries." By L. A. Waddell, p. 448 



3 Rai S. C. Das, Bahadur, has given an example of the Shmtu-Jodpa character, J. A. SB., Vol lvii., Part I., 1888., p. 45. 

 He, like myself, was unable to get the symbols of this character named individually, though the purport of the different groups or 

 vertical lines of characters, which he gives as examples, was stated to him. 



