77 
1887.] Kavi Raj Shyamal Das —Antiquities at Nag art. 
Old coins are sometimes picked np at Uagari during the monsoon, 
when the dust and the surface soil get washed off. Four such coins 
likely to interest numismatists are sent with this paper for the Society’s 
Museum.* Major-General Cunningham fancies from the finding of 
some ancient Sibi coinsf at Cliitor, that it must have belonged to the 
Sibi kings whose dominions lay towards the Panjab, and that Jayatura, 
the metropolis of the Sibi territory, may be Chitor. 
I shall now speak of two old inscriptions (see Plate Va) corroborat¬ 
ing the evidence of the antiquity of Nagari: their squeezes brought 
by Pandit Ram Pratap Jotislii are sent herewith. 
Inscription 1. 
This is on a slab on the right hand side of the door or entrance 
leading down to a tank in the village of Ghasundi, about 4 miles U. E. of 
Nagari.J The tank was completed on the 3rd Baisakh Sudi S. 1566 
(19 April 1510), by Singar Debt, wife of Maharana Rai Mall. 
The slab measures 3 ft. 7 in. x 1 ft. and contains 3 lines of 15 
letters each, but unfortunately the 13th letter in each line is so close 
behind a pillar that an impression could not be taken of it. See Plate I. 
Having failed to make out any satisfactory sense of the inscription, 
I had recourse to my able and learned friend Mr. Bendall, Prof, of 
Sanskrit in University College, London, and I am deeply indebted to 
him for the kindness with which he has replied to me on the 27th October 
last as follows: 
“ The character is in the main the oldest found character known. 
We usually call it the ‘ Southern Asoka.’ All the rock edicts of Asoka 
south of the Panjab are in this character They are in a kind of Prakrit 
or Pali, however. This is in a sort of popular Sanskrit, probably what 
Panini means when he speaks of the bliaslia of his time. Some scholais 
call it the ‘ Gatha dialect.’ The Mahavastu a great Buddhist book, 
published by M. Senart at Paris, is, in the main, in this form of speech. 
* [The coins have been received, but nothing can be made out of them, as the 
devices and inscriptions are quite obliterated. Eo.]. 
f Archaeological Survey Reports, XIV, 45. 
J [In a note, subsequently received, the author adds : “ Entrance of the tank must 
be taken in its literal sense. In Rajputana we have numbers of baoli (^jb) or reser- 
voirs of water, which have only one descent; and over the glicit one, or sometimes 
two-storeyed structures are built; and in some cases, as in the tank in question, 
literally a doorway leads to the water’s edge. Tho inscription exists on the right 
hand side of the descent, inside the entrance, towards the body of the water. There 
are no surrounding walls, raised above the ground level, but the parallel sides of 
tho descent are shaped like walls.” Eo.J 
k 
