18G1.] 
17 
The TSrikaina Inscriptions. 
On the northern flank of the column, among several names, is that 
of Kailasajas'ambhu, as best I can unlock it. If sunlca, apparently 
the epithet attached to it, be indicative of his profession, and if it 
signify “ stone-cutter,” it may be that we know who wrought, 
mechanically, the adjacent lines promulgating the piety and the 
pride of King Matrivishnu and his brother. 
Iksceiption I. 
■5nrcP 11 
* The first five lines of this inscription as engraved have, each, one or more 
letters fretted away at the right-hand extremity. Many is the bucolic tool that 
has owed its edge to the royal column, debused, of later years, to the uses of 
a whetstone. The restorations of these abrasures are indicated by brackets, in 
what follows. 
Line I— (*nf<?>) 
„ II.-- -wrq-^-5TreTj (w) 
„ III.— (n-) 
„ TV.— l^T) 
„ V.— (ajjT:) 
The 7% of line I. is but very slightly damaged. A word thus beginning, and 
expressive of c destruction,’ is here wanted. Such a word was' easy enough to 
find : and I have tacked to it a suppletive particle, quite in the Hindu taste, 
howsoever averse from our own. The metre is thus brought out identically the 
same as that at the commencement of the second inscription. Mr. Prinsep 
reads in contradiction to the warrant of his facsimile, and at the cost of 
good prosody. It should be remarked that, in the antique character with which 
we are concerned, syllables rarely occupy a larger area, laterally, when con- 
taining, than when not containing written uninitial vowels ; these, with the 
unique exception of the u as sometimes united with r, being, invariably, either 
superscript or subscript. 
At the end of the second line Mr. Prinsep found in his facsimile, nothing but 
an upright stroke ; and he has not surmised it to be part of any letter. But the 
stone has distinct traces of what can be only a To piece out from 
this is sufficiently obvious. At the opening of the third line, is un- 
mistakable, in every element of it ; and there is no ground for Mr. Prinsep’a 
comment, that “ the word is written, corruptly, tryordas'ydm^ in the original.” 
Most fortunately, peremptoriness of assertion in this behalf is practicable. 
There is question of the date, concerning which I have already spoken. 
