16 
[No. 1, 
The Inscriptions of Urilcaina. 
moon ; while the designation of the lunar fortnight to which that 
day is referred was passed by altogether. Counted from an unknown 
epoch, no Hindu date, unintegrated by the particularity at last 
amended, is available for eral determination. The omission to 
distinguish the demi-lunation would only add to the irksomeness of 
exploratory computation ; but any process of reckoning based on 
Mr. Prinsep’s premises would, of necessity, have a delusive issue, if 
any at all. 
Had Mr. Prinsep inspected the documents in discussion with 
advantage of the facilities I have been able to command, it is beyond 
question that his conclusions respecting them would have differed, 
as on matters of moment, so as to points of unimportance, from those 
he has recorded. Writing under obligation of the reserve impressed 
by this consideration, I shall stay to expatiate on but a few of the 
discrepancies, touching secondary details, which, on collation of our 
results, the attentive reader will discover. At the same time, I have 
weighed these cases, one and all, with my best diligence. Standing 
before the originals, I compared my facsimiles, letter by letter, with 
those that have been lithographed ; and every the slightest dissimila- 
rity of the copies was patiently tested by the perishing archetypes. 
In fine, it is not undeserving of note that the inscriptions are, to 
a remarkable degree, clear from faults imputable to the artists who 
executed them.* The peculiarities presented in the Sanskrit will be 
specified in the appropriate place. 
Experimentally, if the Udayagiri inscription bo made out rightly as to its 
leading features, and if its year be counted from Vikramaditya, the Chandra- 
gupta which it is said to name must have borne sway about the middle of the 
first century before Christ. See Major Cunningham’s Bliilsa Topes, p. 151 ; and 
this Journal, for 1858, p. 227. 
* Subjoined are all the examples ; : » in one inscrip- 
tion ; xj^TJTTWl: in both 5 Tlle rectifications will he seen in the sequel. 
No account is here taken of the vowels which time has obliterated ; hut they are 
not numerous. 
' Consonants gratuitously doubled I have given single. Maittrayaniya has, 
thus, been simplified to Maitrayaniya. Coins are in existence which exhibit 
even Vikkramaditya. 
Ready intelligibility has, further, been consulted by acquiescing to the laxity 
of the inscriptionist where he neglects the canons which regulate the coales- 
cence of consecutive vowels. 
