1862 .] 
533 
Literary Intelligence, Sfc. 
Camera lucida, by that excellent artist, Mr. Ford, as a basis for the 
engraving, which is designed for the pages of the forthcoming num¬ 
ber of our home Journal. I myself have tested every letter of the 
In scription and added many that were wholly illegible when the 
relic was first discovered. 
My object in forwarding this most interesting record is, that it 
may be submitted to the Antiquarians in your Presidency, with a 
view to an independent translation being made, prior to the receipt 
of Professor Dowson’s rendering of the text, which will probably not 
be published much within a month from this date. With this ob¬ 
ject of testing oriental scholarship, I abstain from all comments on 
the many important bearings of the document itself, though I feel 
bound to anticipate Professor Dowson’s own announcement of his 
successful discovery of the value of the numerals composing the 
date, which even the last number of your Journal (III. 1862, p. 303) 
shows to be far from accomplishment by your local contributors. I 
must premise in order to dispel any doubts about the positive accu¬ 
racy of the present interpretation, that Mr. Norris independently 
worked out precisely the same result on the problem involved in this 
inscription being submitted to him. In brief, then, the numerals 
employed in Arian or Bactro-Pali Inscriptions follow an Egyptian 
system. Units are found to run I = 1, 11 = 2, III = 3, but the 4, 
unlike the Kapurdigiri example of llll, is now formed by a cross, 
similar to a Roman x, a symbol, it is true, we do not find in any 
Egyptian Hieroglyphic scheme, though the five-pointed star excep¬ 
tionally denoted 5. It will be seen that the Arian eight is formed 
by a duplication of the four in this fashion XX. 
The ten is represented by a semi-circle, and, in its system of dupli¬ 
cation, triplication, &c., proves in like manner to take after the usage 
of the Egyptians ; though it is unquestionable that one of the less 
common forms of the Phoenician ten is expressed thus ) (Gesenius 
p. 87), yet, to my understanding, the whole scheme seems to be 
based more directly upon the purely Egyptian ideal, # than upon any 
* Hieroglyphic Numbers p. 402. Encylop. Metr. by R. S. Poole, Esq. and 
Revue Arcbeologique, p, 261, November 1862. 
One 0 or 1 
Two Q 0 or 11 
t 
