185 
1802.] Remarks on the above by E. C. Bayley, Esq. 
are yet words which, accepted even in Ihe sense which he has taken, 
are certainly not pure Pali nor pure Sanscrit: —for example, the 
word “ Mahi Sachya” or “ Mahi Sachha” in the 2nd and 3rd lines. 
The form of the demonstrative pronoun “ iya” and “ imena” ap¬ 
proaches too more nearly to the form prevailing in the Perso-Pali 
of the Behistun inscription than to the Indo-Pali or Sanscrit. The 
proper names which occur in the Wardak inscription, moreover, are 
most of them certainly in no degree of a Sanscrit or Pali origin. 
While therefore fully admitting that a dialect of Pali forms the 
groundwork of the language of the ordinary Ariano Pali inscriptions, 
I would venture to demur to the assertion, that it differs only from 
the ordinary Pali of India in “ hearing a closer resemblance to the 
Sanscrit.” 
The arguments adduced in support of this assertion have at least 
failed to prove it, and I may venture the rather to doubt its sound¬ 
ness, as I know that on a careful examination of the Wardak inscrip¬ 
tion, shortly before his death, the late Professor H. H. Wilson ex¬ 
pressed a very opposite opinion. 
Indeed the antecedent circumstances of the case are very much 
against the probability of the language, at least of any territories 
north of the Jhelum, being purely Pali, or Sanscritized Pali. 
Whatever the predominating element of the population may have 
been, it certainly was not a purely Plindu population at any time 
between 300 B. C. and 200 A. D.,—the period to which most of the 
inscriptions which have come down to us, may be pretty safely as¬ 
signed. The Bactrian branch of the great Arian family, to which 
most, if not all, of its subdivisions using the Semitic alphabets 
may with some likelihood be attributed, leaned in their dialect, ac¬ 
cording to Professor Hang, rather to that used by their Persian, than 
to that of their Indian brethren. 
But what is of far more importance, during the five centuries 
named, and very probably for many others antecedently, these pro¬ 
vinces had been the highway by which hordes of invaders of every 
class and stock had poured themselves upon India. 
Many of these were unquestionably of a Turanian stock, and it 
is probable that of each successive army some portion settled itself on 
the soil by the way. The only wonder is, that the Arian element 
retained even so strong a position in the language as it evident- 
2 b 2 
