4 
Dr. Hoernle —Antiquities from Central Asia. [Extra No. 1, 
are distinguished from the genuine finds not only by their “ unknown 
characters,” but also by their paper, wbicli is modern in substance, and 
in colour and condition shows evidence of having been artificially mani¬ 
pulated.* The fabricated manuscript books are distinguished also by 
their peculiar binding after the manner of Codices, like the blockprints. 
All the genuine manuscript books of the Collection observe the form of 
the Indian Pot hi; and all the genuine scripts belong to known types, 
such as Brahmi, Kharosthl, Chinese, Uigur, Persian. All these are 
represented in our Collection of manuscripts and coins. 
The earliest fabrications of manuscripts were evidently executed 
with much care and ingenuity. Genuine manuscripts seem to have been 
imitated : otherwise it is impossible to explain the production of manu¬ 
scripts which could deceive the eye of expert scholars by their resem¬ 
blance to Pahlavi or Brahmi. 6 In four of the earliest manuscripts, 
Brahmi letters and letter-groups are imitated, greatly resembling those 
which are seen in Pothi No. I of Set II (see p. 18). The subjoined 
Woodcut shows facsimiles of the word ma-lkye-r as imitated from the 
Pothi in which it occurs very frequently. 
No. 1. 
No. 1 is taken from the Pothi, Nos. 2 and 3 from two of the four 
fabricated Codices above referred to, and No. 4 occurs in the formula of 
the IYth Set of Blockprints (see Part I, p. 85 and Plate XII i. It was 
the latter formula which furnished me with the first distinct evidence of 
fabrication. This formula, as it stands in the blockprints, appears to be 
written in a species of “ unknown character.” Comparing it, early in 
1901, with the Brahmi writing in the Codices, it suggested itself to me 
to examine the formula in a mirror, when it became at once apparent 
that it was written in precisely the same character as the codices, only 
the writing was reversed in print. In Table I the formula is shown in 
6 Thus, Dr. E. West who very kindly examined a manuscript book of 56 leaves 
(/f x 5|") which seemed to imitate Pahlavi writing, writes to me (July, 1901) : “I 
find that the Pahlavi words I have collected form one-twelfth of your large MS., 
contain 13, out of 15, Pahlavi letters, and represent 27 out of the 33 known Pahlavi 
sounds. So that a twefth part of the MS. has supplied five-sixths of the Pahlavi 
alphabet and sounds. But it has not supplied a single intelligible clause of a 
sentence.” / 
