[No. 4, 
308 Vestiges of the Kings of Gwalior. 
in a temple of Vishnu at Gwalior. It is a record in prose, in the Ivutila 
character of a somewhat peculiar type, of a grant of three small plots 
of arable land for a flower-garden, a serai or halting-place and a 
drinking fountain, as also of an edict for the supply of oil and flowers to 
certain temples. The donor’s name is not apparent, and no genealogy 
is given of the sovereign during whose reign the ordinance was 
promulgated. The grants, says the record, were made in the year 
of Samvat 933 = A. C. 87G when the country was under the supre¬ 
macy of a Lord Paramount Bhoja Deva, whose dominion extended to 
Turkastana which was governed by his Lieutenant Kottapala Malla 
or Kongapala Malla. Where this Turkastana was situated it is difficult 
to make out, although it is evident that it was a large province, and 
included several sub-divisions or cantons (sabbiyakas) having non- 
Sanskrit names. This would warrant the supposition that it was a 
Trans-Indian locality and situated somewhere in Baloochistan or 
Afghanistan. But judging from the fact that the river which is 
said to flow through it has a purely Indian name— Vrischikdld, and the 
temples of the place belong to the Hindu divinities Iiudra, Budra- 
ni, the nine Durgas, and Pushnasa, I feel disposed to think its locate 
was nearer home, probably by the 'nulla which flows by the foot 
of the hill close by the temple; certainly not quite so far as 
Delhi to the north, or the Aravalli to th west; the Bajas of 
Gwalior never having, to the best of our knowledge, held sway 
beyond those limits. The name of one of the gods, Pushnasa, is of 
doubtful origin. Pushan is a Vedic divinity and believed to be an 
ancient term for the sun, and also of the presiding deity of roads, # but 
that word by no rule of grammar can become Pushnasa, and the query 
therefore is suggested as to what relationship it may bear to the Pushan 
of the Parsees. The names of some of the inhabitants are Hindu, while 
others have strange cognomens. Some names are partly Indian and 
partly foreign, such as Ba-illa Bhatta and Naka-illa Bhatta, in which 
while the latter member is decidedly Sanskrita, the ilia has a strong 
Arabic leaning.f The standard of linear measure in the country was 
peculiar, and known as that of the Lord Paramount— Pdrames'wara. 
The quantitive measure of droni was also different, and peculiar to 
* Vide Wilson’s Rig Veda, I. p 115. 
t The ilia might be a Prakrits, corruption of vattip, but we have few instances 
of its use in Hindu proper names. 
