89 
1891.] A. F, R. Hoernle— On the date of the Bower Manuscript . 
the transitional or modern cursive forms exclusively are outside the 
question; so are, of course, all those that are not written in some 
variety or other of the North-Western alphabet. Now there are 34 
inscriptions of the former description in Mr. Fleet’s Volume III of 
the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. To these may be added a few 
others, such as the Toramana inscription in the Epigraphia Indica , vol. I, 
p. 238, and the Kumdra Gupta seal in the Journal , Asiatic Society of 
Bengal, vol. LVIII, p. 88. Among these there are only ten inscrip¬ 
tions, a little more than one-fourth , that exhibit the occasional use 
of the transitional and modern cursive forms at all. The rest use 
exclusively the old form. 
(2) The transitional and full cursive forms occur, in that one-fourth 
of inscriptions, exclusively in connection ivith the vowels E or 0. # With 
all other vowels, i. e, f in every other case, the old form is used. 
(3) Even in connection with the vowels E and 0, the transitional and 
modem cursive forms are not obligatary, but optional. In fact, even with 
those vowels, the old form is used more commonly than the transi¬ 
tional and modern cursive forms. On the whole the former is used 
twice as often as the latter. 
(4) Of the two cursive forms, the transitional and the modern, the 
former is used much more frequently than the latter (viz., transitional: 
modern = 13: 4). 
In the second place, note that the period during which the sporadic 
use of the transitional and modern cursive forms occurs, is a comparatively 
well defined and short one. Its termini, so far as the evidence of the 
available inscriptions goes, are from 371 A. D. to 533 A. D., or in round 
numbers from 370 to 540 A. D., i. e., 170 years. Or, if we omit the 
very early case of the Bijagadh inscription, of 371 A. D., as perhaps of 
a suspicious character, because it stands by itself, separated by an 
interval of about 100 years from all others, the transition period extends 
from about 470 to 540 A. D., that is, 70 years. Antecedently to this 
period, we find the old form of ya in undisputed possession of the field, 
and subsequent to it, the cursive form of ya is in equally undisputed 
possession. 
Now it appears to me, that from these facts there is but one conclu¬ 
sion, to which one is irresistibly driven. It is this, that there is here dis¬ 
closed to us evidence of the actual point in time, when the invention, so 
to speak, of the cursive form of ya was made, or, to speak more precisely, 
the application of it to the non-conjunct ya. For to suit the case of the 
conjunct or under-written ya, the cursive form had been long before 
# Probably it would also be used with the vowels ai and au ; though no instance 
happens to occur in the existing inscriptions, 
M 
