92 
A. F. R. Hoernle— On the date of the Bower Manuscript. [No. 2, 
letter y is combined with the vowels e or ai or o, the cursive (transitional 
and modern) form is used in 17, while the old form is used in 6 ; that 
is, the former is used about three times as often as the latter ; ad No. 4, 
that out of 17 instances of the use of the transitional and modern cursive 
forms, the former is used 16 times, while the latter occurs only once ; 
i . e.f that the transitional form is used almost exclusively. 
Now comparing the case of the Bower MS. with that of the Gupta 
inscriptions, the result is this, that the two cases, while fully agreeing 
in the main points, differ only in one particular, namely, that the cursive 
(transitional or modern) form is used in the manuscript rather more 
frequently than the old form (viz., cursive: old *= 3 : 1), while in the 
inscriptions the old form is used rather more frequently than the 
cursive form (viz. } cursive: old = 1: 2). This, however, is nothing 
more than may be expected, if we consider that on the one side we 
have a case of ordinary manuscript writing, on the other one of docu¬ 
mentary inscription, and remember that (as Professor Biihler says, in 
Epigraphia Indica, p. 68) “ everywhere in India the epigraphic alpha¬ 
bets are in many details retrograde and lag behind the literary ones.” 
One thing, however, is clearly brought out by the evidence above 
set out, that the writing of the Bower MS. must be placed within that 
period, which, as we have seen, is marked out by that evidence as the 
period of transition from the use of the old rigid form of ya to the use of 
the (still existing) cursive form; that is, for manuscript writing, 
within the period from about 400 to 500 A. D., or the fifth century. 
It is true that in the second, third and fourth portions of the Bower 
MS., the old form is used exclusively. There is no trace whatsoever of 
either the transitional or the modern cursive forms. Judgingby this cir¬ 
cumstance only, we should have to place the MS. still earlier, somewhere 
before the fifth century A, D. But this would certainly seem to be 
wrong with regard to the second portion. For the fact, that this portion 
was written after the first, seems to be clearly proved by the circum¬ 
stance that it commences on the reverse of a leaf, on the obverse of 
which we have the ending of the first portion. Properly considered, 
however, that circumstance only tends to confirm the conclusion that 
the main portion (ABE) of the Bower MS. was written during the 
transitional period. For it is only natural to suppose that during that 
period, some scribes had already more or less adopted the new fashion of 
cursive writing, while others, more conservative, adhered to the older 
fashion. On the whole, therefore, considering that the portions A and 
E of the MS. appear to manifest a decided tendency to a free use of 
the transitional form, it will probably be safer to place the date of the 
main portion of the MS. nearer to the end, than the beginning of the transit 
