100 
Dr. Hoernle— Two Copper-plate Grants of Ratnap&la. [No. 1, 
description of Ratnapftla’s residence and person is in prose, down to 
line 52. The remainder is as usual: namely the description of the land, 
its perquisites and boundaries is in prose, viz ., from line 52 down 
line 58, and lines 58 to 64; but the genealogy of the donee is in verse, 
from lines 65 to 72. 
The composition is very laboured; and the fact that about one- 
half of the royal genealogy is in prose suggests that the writer’s 
literary powers were not equal to the task of versifying the whole. 
The mechanical execution of the grant is very slovenly and in¬ 
accurate ; it is, in this respect, even worse then that of the Gauhati 
grant. Syllables are frequently omitted ; thus 1.1, duste for nirdustair (?); 
1. 13, ksi for Jcsiti; 1. 15, khim for ksitim; 1.52, Ratnapa for Ratnapdla, 
etc. Similarly letters are omitted: e. g., 1.11, anaya for anayad ; 1.22, 
anuraga for anuragdj. Occasionally superfluous syllables are inserted ; 
e. g., 1.2, anekinebhavan for anZki-bhavaii; 1.8, kundalena for kundale. 
Similarly a superfluous l is added in 1. 14, jayal-labdha for jaya-labdha , 
1.45, udbhdsanal-ldsd, etc. Anusvara and visarga are very frequently 
omitted; see the footnotes 4, 15, 18, etc. Long and short vowels are 
frequently interchanged ; e. g ., 1. 3, tat for tat; 1. 6, griyam for griyam, 
etc. For other miscellaneous blunders, see footnotes 6, 12, 43, 49, 57, 
67, etc. A curiosity is the euphonic insertion of rln 1. 11, nu-r-iha \ 
and there is another instance in the Sualkuci grant, in 1. 21, marttanda- 
r-iva. 
The usual provincialisms abound; for confusion of sibilants, see 
footnotes 16, 31, 34, 69, 85, 89, 91, etc.; for the ligature of guttural rj 
with sibilants, see footnotes 34, 36, 42, etc.; for the ligature of dental n 
with gutturals and sibilants see footnotes 16, 18, 28, 29, etc.; for the 
ligature of m with v, see footnotes 13, 44, 65, 67, etc. 
The last mentioned ligature is really explained by the fact that no 
separate sign for b is used in all these Asam grants. And this fact, 
again, is explained by the circumstance that in Baqgali and Asami 
no distinction is made, in pronunciation, between non-conjunct v and b ; 
both are pronounced alike as b. There are other indications of a more 
sporadic occurrence of what may be called “ phonetic spelling.” They 
are curious, as showing how far back such fashions of pronunciation 
may be traced. In modern Baqgali and Asami ks is pronounced kh. 
Hence we find in 1.15 khim (false for khitim ) spelled for ksitim, and in 
1. 17, vikhya for viksya. Similarly non-conjunct initial y is now pro¬ 
nounced j, and conjunct y is omitted. An instance of the former 
practice occurs in 1. 21, ja for yd, 1. 35, jaksmand for yaksmand , also 
in the Gauhati grant II a 1 jag as for yagas. An instance of the latter 
practice occurs in the Nowgong grant in III a 6 (Jdmdyikd, the correct 
