56 
A Pallava Insoripfion from Amaravafi. 
(By E. HULTZSCH, Ph.D.) 
The subjoined Sanskrit inscription is engraved on three 
sides of an octagonal pillar,^ which, was excavated at Amara- 
vati by Mr. Sewell and is now put up in the Madras Museum. 
The top of the pillar and some letters of the uppermost lines 
of the inscription have been broken off. The inscription has 
hitherto remained a puzzle, as each line seems to end 
incomplete. Finding that the first words of some Hnes were 
connected with the last words of the following lines, I was 
led to suppose that the inscription must begin from the 
bottom and not from the top. Cm'iously enough, this is 
really the case. If the inscription is read upwards, we find 
that it consists of eleven complete verses and of a prose 
passage, the end of which is lost through the mutilation of 
the pillar at the top. 
The inscription opens with an invocation of Buddha and 
with a mythical genealogy of Pallava, the supposed founder 
of the Pallava dynasty. 
Brahman. 
I 
Bharadv&ja. 
j 
Angiras. 
i 
Sudhaman. 
Drona. 
I 
' See Dr. Burgess' Notes on tht Atnardvati Stilpa, p. 49/. 
