88 A. F. R. Hoernle— On the date of the fioiver Manuscript. [No. 2, 
ahhivriddhaye , 1. 7, and chhreyo, 1. 15, here also with the vowels e 
and o; and side by side with the old form in ye, 1. 10, lopayet , 1. 12, 
prdyena, 1. 16, yo , 1. 20. Another instance occurs in the Khoh inscrip¬ 
tion of Jayanatha, of 496 A. D. (Fleet, p. 121), in the word ahhivrid - 
dliaye , 1 . 8 , again with the vowel e, and side by side with the older form 
in pratyayopanayam , 1. 11, and prdyena , 1. 17. A very clear instance is 
in the Tusam inscription, of about 500 A. D. (Fleet, p. 269), in yoga - 
charyya, 1. 3, again with the vowel o, and side by side with the old form 
in upayojyam , 1. 6.* Another clear instance occurs in the Jaunpur 
inscription of I'svaravarman, of about 520 A. D. (Fleet, p. 228), in 
anvavaye , 1. 2, again with the vowel e. So again in the Mandasor 
inscription of Yasodharman, of about 530 A. D. (Fleet, p. 149), in yo , 1. 4, 
again with the vowel o, and side by side with the old form in pddayor, 
1. 5. Similarly in the Mandasor inscription of Yasodharman as Vishnu- 
vardhana, of 533 A. D. (Fleet, p. 150), in yena , 1. 8, again with the 
vowel e, and side by side with the old form in hhurayo , 1. 8,t yena , 1. 8, 
13, yo , 1. 17, 18. Likewise in the Khoh inscription of S'arvanatha, of 
533 A. D. (Fleet, p. 135), in nyayena , 1. 13, ye, 1. 16, and pratyayot- 
pannaha , 1. 9, again with the vowels e and o , and side by side with the 
old form in lopayet, 1. 18, grdmayor, 1. 7, yo, l. 25, ye, 1. 27, etc. These 
are all the instances of the occurrence of the transitional form that I 
have been able to discover among the 43 (Gupta) inscriptions in the 
North-Western alphabet, published by Mr. Fleet. 
Contemporary with them are the following instances of the use of 
the modern cursive form. In the Maghgawan inscription of Hastin, of 
510 A. D. (Fleet, p. 106), it occurs in the words chhreyo , 1. 14, yo, 1. 16, 
paniyeshu, 1. 17, ye, 1. 18, again with the vowels e and o, and side by side 
with the old form in the words anvayopabhogyas, 1. 10, yo, 1. 11, ahayo, 
1. 18.J The transitional form also occurs in the word ahhivriddhaye, 
1. 7. 
Now as to the conclusions that follow from the above statistics, 
note, in the first place, the extreme rarity of the transitional and full 
cursive forms, as well as the peculiar circumstances under which alone 
they occur. And here mark the following four points. 
(1) They occur only in a small proportion of inscriptions. Of course, 
the only inscriptions with which we are here concerned are those 
that use more or less exclusively the old form. Those that already use 
* This instance was also noticed by Mr. Fleet (p. 270, footnote 4). It is the 
identical form that occurs in the Bower MS. 
f This is a very good instance for comparison, because in hhurayo yena the 
two forms stand in immediate juxtaposition. 
X In these cases the peculiarity of the form is also noted by Mr. Fleet, p. 106. 
