The Origin of the Bengali Script

Front matter

THE ORIGIN OF THE BENGALI SCRIPT

THE ORIGIN

OF THE

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The arrangement.

In an essay on the origin and development of the Bengali script, one must necessarily follow the steps of the late Hofrath Dr. Georg Bühler, the father of the science of Indian Palæography. Though Burnell's work on the subject was published long ago, the accuracy of the narrative and the scientific arrangement of Bühler's work have made his claim to the title indisputable. His Indische Palaeographie was published in 1896, as a part of the Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Allertumskunde, organised by that indefatigable publisher, Dr. Karl J. Trübner of Strassburg. The work, as a matter of course, was short and concise, and dealt with the development of Indian alphabets up to the 12th century A. D. The development of the alphabets, from B. C. 350 to 600 A. D., is clearly described in this work. But after that period, lack of materials obliged the learned author to consider the development of the Northern alphabet as a whole, and not according to its varieties. The discoveries made during the last sixteen years have rendered it possible to take up that work now. The arrangement followed in these pages is mainly that of Dr. Bühler's from the dawn of the historical period to the 6th century A. D., but is different with regard to the subsequent periods. In latter periods, more attention has been paid to specimens from North-Eastern India, and the latest discoveries added to the list of epigraphs, have been analysed. Thus, the inscriptions on the railing-pillars at Bodh-Gayā have been placed in their proper position in the chronological order according to the new light thrown on them. In the Gupta period, the addition of a new variety of the alphabet is now possible, owing to the discoveries of the remains of ancient Indian civilisation in the deserts of Central Asia. Fresh discoveries have also made it possible to trace the gradual displacement of the Eastern variety of the Northern alphabet by the Western one, in the 5th and 6th centuries A. D., and to determine the exact epoch of the final displacement. Finally, new materials have facilitated the determination of the type specimens of each variety, in each particular century, with a nearer approach to accuracy.

From the 7th century onward, it has been found impossible to follow the arrangement in Dr. Bühler's work, as the development of the Eastern variety from 600-1100 A. D. has not been clearly shown there. In the following pages, the alphabets of the North-Eastern inscriptions of the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. have been separately analysed. In the 8th century, we find three different varieties of the alphabet in Northern India, or more strictly four, if we count the alphabet of Afghanistan, which is as yet but little known. The Western and Afghanistan varieties were developed from the old Western variety, while the Central and Eastern varieties were evolved out of the old Eastern. The Eastern variety lost ground and its Western boundary gradually receded eastwards. The development, of the Eastern alphabet only, has been followed in these pages. It has become possible to show, that proto-Bengali forms were evolved in the North-East, long before the invasion of Northern India, by the Nāgarī alphabet of the South-West, and that Nāgarī has had very little influence upon the development of the Bengali script. The chronology of the Pāla dynasty of Bengal, and specially their relations with the Gurjjara-Pratīhāras have been settled from synchronisms, and a detailed discussion of the subject will be found in my monograph on the Pālas of Bengal.

It is evident that Nārāyaṇapāla preceded Mahendrapāla and Magadha, specially the Western portion of it was included for sometime in the Empire of the Gurjjara-Pratīhāras. The establishment of this sequence is of the utmost importance, as it enables us to treat the analysis of Pāla records, which are dated in the majority of cases in regnal years, with more confidence.

With the introduction of the Nāgarī script in the 10th century, the Western limit of the use of the Eastern alphabet was still further reduced. In the 11th century, we find that, there is very little similarity between the alphabet used in Benares and that used in Gayā. The progress of the changes has been very rapid, and we find the complete proto-Bengali alphabet in the 11th century A.D. In the 12th century, we find further changes, which make the formation of the modern Bengali alphabet almost complete. The final development of certain letters, such as i, ca and ṇa, are not noticeable until after the Muhammadan conquest. The dearth of records of the 13th and 14th centuries A.D., both manuscript and epigraphic, makes it impossible to follow the development of these letters in this period. The shock of the Muhammedan conquest paralysed Eastern India, from which it never recovered entirely. The blow stunned literature, prevented its growth during the first two centuries after the conquest, and a partial revival was made only in the 15th century. The revival received a fresh impetus from the Neo-Vaiṣṇavism of Caitanya and his followers. With the paralysis of literature, the development of the alphabet also stopped. Very few changes have, indeed, been made in the Eastern alphabet from the 12th century A.D. down to the nineteenth. Such changes, as are noticeable, were made during the 15th and 16th centuries, and have been illustrated by the alphabet used in two Mss. written in Bengali:—

(1) Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, copied in Vikrama Samvat 1492 (1435 A.D.), discovered by Mahāmahopādhyāya Haraprasāda Śāstrī, C. I. E., in Nepal and purchased by him for the Asiatic Society of Bengal. (No. G. 8067.) The complete colophon of this ms. has already been published by me in my monograph on Saptagrāma.

(2) Caṇḍīdāsa's Kṛṣṇa-Kīrttana, a new work discovered by Paṇdit Vasantarañjana Rāya, Vidvadvallabha, the Keeper of the ms. collection of the Vangīya-Sāhitya-Pariṣad. Though the material is paper, the script makes it impossible to assign the ms. to any date later than the 14th century A.D.

The completely developed alphabet has not changed at all during the 17th and 18th centuries A.D. In the 19th century, the vernacular and classical literature received a fresh impetus, as the result of the contact with the West, but the alphabet ceased to change. Its forms were stereotyped by the introduction of the printing press, and it is not likely that in future it will change its forms in each century.

B. The limits of the use of the Eastern Variety.

From the beginning of the Empire of the Mauryas till the downfall of the Imperial Guptas, Allahabad and its immediate neighbourhood formed the western limit of the use of the Gupta alphabet. The western

PLATE I. Fragmentary Inscription on image of Budha-Rajgir- Patna (I. M.) No. N. S. 2.

limit is the most important one, as this was the only limit which changed its position. Upon the formation of a Western variety in the North-Eastern alphabet, this limit gradually receded eastwards. In the 8th century, Benares formed the eastern boundary of the Western variety, but in the beginning of the 11th century, we find that the limit has receded further East. In the 12th century, both varieties were being used in Magadha, as is shown by the Govindapur Stone Inscription of the Śaka year 1059, and the Bodh-Gayā Inscription of Jayaccandra. After the Muhammadan conquest, the Western variety gradually spread itself over the whole of South Bihār or Magadha, and the use of the Eastern variety was confined to the western limits of Bengal proper. The use of the Eastern variety, however, lasted in Magadha till the 14th century, when we find it in votive inscriptions, on flag-stones in the court-yard of the Great Temple at Bodh-Gayā, and in a new inscription discovered by Mr. Lāl Bihāri Lāl Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Bihār. The Gayā-Prapitāmaheśvara temple inscription of V. S. 1257 and the Umgā Hill inscription of Bhairavendra (V. S. 1496=1439 A.D.) show that Nāgarī had entirely displaced the Eastern variety in Magadha.

In the north the snowy mountains formed the northern limit. But in the north-east the Bengali alphabet was adopted in Assam, where not only in the Kamauli grant of Vaidyadeva, but also in other inscriptions, Bengali characters have been exclusively used. In the Assam plates of Vallabhadeva of the Śaka year 1107=1185 A.D. we find archaisms, which lurked in the backwoods of civilisation. In the east the Bengali script was also being used in Sylhet, where similar archaisms are to be met with in the Sylhet grants of Keśavadeva and Īśānadeva. In the south the Bengali script was used throughout Orissa. We find the proto-Bengali script in the Ananta Vāsudeva temple inscription of Bhaṭṭa Bhavadeva at Bhuvaneśvara, and the modern Bengali alphabet in the grants of the Gāṅga Kings Nṛsiṁhadeva II and Nṛsiṁhadeva IV. The modern cursive Oḍiyā script was developed out of the Bengali after the 14th century A. D. like the modern Assamese.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

The Northern Indian Alphabets (B.C. 350—A.D. 600).

A. The Older Maurya Alphabet.

Leaving aside the various theories about the origin of the ancient Indian alphabet, we turn to examine it as it has been found to exist at the beginning of the historical period. It is sufficient for the purpose of the present article that Dr. Bühler recognised the antiquity of the Indian Alphabet in Aśoka's time. "The existence of so many local varieties, and of so very numerous cursive forms, proves, in any case, that writing had had a long history in Aśoka's time and the alphabet was then in a state of transition." The alphabet is also recognised to be "a script framed by learned Brāhmaṇs for writing Sanskrit." The earliest Indian inscription is the record on the Piprāwā vase discovered in 1898. It can be proved on palæographical grounds that the forms of Brāhmī letters used in incising this record are older than those of Aśoka's inscriptions. The vases found in the Stūpa at Piprāwā contained according to one authority the relic (Śarīra) of Buddha himself, and according to another, those of his kinsmen of the Śākya clan. It has been surmised that the stūpa was raised over the relics of the Śākyas, who were slain by Viruḍhaka, King of Kośala, during the life-time of Buddha

himself. Consequently the date of the Piprāwā inscription must lie either in the 5th or the 4th centuries B.C. Palæographical evidence fully supports this conclusion: the archaic forms of the Brāhmī alphabet found on the Persian sigloi, which went out of the general use in Aśoka's time, are found to have been used in the inscription. An analysis, of the characters of this inscription, would be out of place here, as it does not properly belong to the Eastern variety of the Maurya alphabet. It serves to indicate the upper limit of the use of the alphabet of this period. The lower limit has been fixed by Bühler at 200 B.C. The seals, found by Cunningham at Pātnā, which according to Bühler belong to the period when Brāhmī was written boushophedon (βονστροφπδον), were really seal-matrices, like the Rohṭāsgaḍh Rock seal-matrix of the Mahāsāmantādhipati Śaśāṅka.

B. Varieties of the Older Maurya Alphabet.

In 1896, Bühler admitted the existence of two distinct varieties of this alphabet, viz:—

(i) the Northern: to be found in the rock-edicts at Kālsi, the pillar-edicts at Allahabad, Rādhiā, Māthiā, Niglivā, Paḍeriā and Rāmpurwā, the minor rock-edicts at Bairāṭ, Sahasrām, the inscriptions of the Barābār caves and Sāñci and Sārnāth pillars;

(ii) the Southern: to be found in the-rock edicts at Girnār, Dhauli and Jaugaḍa and the minor rock-edicts at Siddapura.

Bühler already noticed the existence of varieties, at this period, in the Northern Maurya alphabet. "Even

the writings in the northern versions are not quite homogeneous. The pillar edicts of Allahabad, Māthiā, Niglivā, Paḍeriā, Rādhiā and Rāmpurwā form a very closely connected set, in which only occasionally minute differences can be traced, and the edicts of Bairāṭ No. I, Sahasrām, Barābār and Sāñci, do not differ much. A little further off stands the Dhauli separate edicts (where Edict VII has been written by a different hand from the rest), the Delhi-Mirāṭ edicts and the Allahabad Queen's edict, as these show the angular da. Very peculiar and altogether different is the writing of the rock-edict of Kālsi, with it, some letters on the coins of Agathocles and Pantaleon (but also some in the Jaugaḍa separate edicts), agree. Perhaps, it is possible to speak also of a North-Western variety of the older Maurya alphabet."

Thus Bühler distinguishes three different sub-varieties in the Northern Maurya alphabet. According to their geographical distribution, they may be classified as follows:—

(a) The North-Eastern—found in the Allahabad, Rādhiā, Māthiā, Rāmpurwā, Niglivā, Paḍeriā and the Sārnāth pillar edicts. The Earthen seals found at Pātnā (seal matrices bearing the inverted inscriptions Naṁdāya and Agapalaśa) as well as that found by Cunningham at Bodh-Gayā (Mokhalinam) belong to this period.

(b) The North-Central—found in the rock-edicts at Bairāṭ and Sahasrām, the pillar-edicts at Sāñci and Delhi and the cave-inscriptions at Barābār.

(c) The North-Western—represented by the characters of the Kālsi rock-edicts and the letters on the coins of the Greek kings Agathocles and Pantaleon.

In this paper we are concerned only with the North-Eastern variety, of the older Maurya-alphabet, and such inscriptions of the Northern Central variety as are to be found in North-Eastern India. A detailed description of the older Maurya alphabet would also be out of place here, as it is not yet possible to improve upon Dr. Bühler's admirable description of it. Consequently, one has to remain content, simply with the noting of the peculiarities of the alphabet as found in different inscriptions. Among vowel signs the only letter to be noted is the initial ī which has been found in one of the inscriptions on the railings around the great temple at Bodh-Gayā, where Bühler reads Īdāgimitasu for Iṁdāgimitasa read by Cunningham. But in reality, the characters of this inscription belong to the younger Maurya alphabet, as shown by Bloch. Among the consonants the form of kha found in one of the inscriptions at Bodh-Gayā, with a triangle as its base, should be noted, but this inscription also, belongs to the younger Maurya alphabet. The only instance of ṇa, among the inscriptions of this period, is to be found in the mason's marks on the pillars of Buddha's walk, inside the temple enclosure at Bodh-Gayā. Cha with two loops, one on each side of a vertical straight line, instead of a circle divided into two unequal parts, have also been found among the mason's marks on the pillar-bases of Buddha's walk. The usual form of ja, is the Northern form with a loop or a dot. Other letters do not call for special attention but forms of the test letters ya, la, sa and ha may be noted. The form of ya is essentially the Northern one, which Bühler calls the "notched ya." The form of la is generally cursive. One important exception is to be found, in the extremely cursive form, used in the Jaugaḍa separate edicts, which is essentially the same to be found in the Eastern variety of the Early Gupta alphabet of the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. The position of the Jaugaḍa edict is somewhat peculiar. The edicts of Dhauli and Jaugaḍa, though relegated to the Southern variety of the older Maurya alphabet, stand in an intermediate position. "The Southern variety is most strongly expressed in the Girnār and Siddapura edicts, less clearly in the Dhauli and Jaugaḍa edicts by differences in the signs for a, ā, kha, ja, ma, ra, sa, the medial i, and the ligatures with ra." Most probably, the cursive forms of ha and la, found in the Jaugaḍa separate edicts, were imported from Northern India, as will be seen later on. In the North-Eastern variety, the usual form of ha is also cursive. The extremely cursive form of this letter, in the Jaugaḍa separate edicts, is peculiar and an importation from the North. This statement is corroborated by the discovery of a slightly different cursive form in the Allahabad separate edicts, line 1 in the word mahāmāta.

C. The Younger Maurya Alphabet.

The last eight columns, of Plate II of Bühler's tables, represent the younger Brāhmī alphabet of Northern India. The letters are taken from six series of inscriptions—

(i) The Nāgārjunī cave-inscriptions of Daśaratha, ca. 200 B.C.

(ii) The inscriptions on the Toraṇas, railing-pillars and cross-bars of the Bhārhut Stūpa, ca. 150 B.C.

(iii) The cave inscriptions at Pabhosa in the United Provinces, ca. 150 B.C.

(iv) The oldest inscriptions from Mathurā. These letters are principally taken from the oldest inscriptions discovered by Dr. A. Führer during the excavations at Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā, but the most ancient inscription from the district of Mathurā was discovered by Cunningham at Parkham. This inscription is incised on the base of a mutilated image of Yakṣa, at present in the Archæological Museum at Mathurā. Most probably its characters belong to the younger Maurya alphabet.

(v) The Hāthigumphā inscription of Khāravela of Kaliṅga, ca. 160 B.C.

(vi) The Nānāghāṭ inscriptions of the Andhras, ca. 150 B.C.

Among these, only the Nāgārjunī cave-inscriptions of Daśaratha can be said to belong to the North Eastern variety. During subsequent years one other group has been added to the above list:

(vii) The inscriptions on the railing-pillars around the great temple at Bodh-Gayā. The late Dr. Theodor Bloch drew attention to the fact that "the older part of the Bodh-Gayā railing was put up in the middle of the 2nd century B.C., about 100 years after the time of Aśoka". The cave-inscriptions of Daśaratha are about half a century older than those on the railing pillars at Bodh-Gayā. The following points are worth noting on the alphabet of the cave inscriptions:—

(1) the form of la closely resembles, that of the extremely cursive one, found in the Jaugaḍa separate edicts (see ante p. 14);

PLATE II. Fragmentary Kusana Inscription-Rajgir-Patna (I. M. No. 6283).

(2) the form of lingual ṣa is peculiar and resembles the form found in the Kālsi edicts, probably, it was the precursor of the looped lingual ṣa found in Eastern India in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D.;

(3) the form of ha is primitive and resembles that of the Siddapura edicts;

(4) the form of ṣa shows an advance—the upper hook has been lengthened to form a slightly slanting second horizontal line.

The form of the remaining letters in Column XVII of Plate II of Bühler's work does not call for remarks. The inscriptions on the railing-pillars and cross-bars at Bodh-Gayā exhibit further changes, though they were incised only about fifty years after Daśaratha's time:—

(a) a shows two forms. In the word Amoghas, the first letter is decidedly of southern appearance (e.g. Pl. II, Col. VIII, 1.); the other form is to be found in the various inscriptions of the noble lady Kuraṅgi and resembles that used in the Hāthigumphā inscriptions (Pl. II, Col. XXI, 1);

(b) ka has invariably the dagger-shaped form which was current up to the end of the 6th century A.D. and was formed by the elongation of the vertical line of the older Maurya form, cf. ka in Tabapanaka, Kuraṅgiye, Sakaputrasa, Cetika;

(c) kha occurs once only, in Bodhirakhitasa where it resembles the form used in the oldest inscription in Mathurā (Pl. II, Col. XX, 10); there is a very slight difference between these two forms, the Eastern variety form as found in the Bodh-Gayā inscription, being slightly longer than that of the Western variety;

(d) ga occurs several times in the name Kuraṅgi where it has two varieties:—(1) cursive as in Pl. X, p. 4 and (2) the angular as in Pl. X, 6-7;

(e) gha also occurs only once in Amoghasa; its appearance shows great change, though it resembles one of the forms used in the Kālsi edicts (Pl. II, Col. 3-12); it is, on the whole, different from the form to be found in the North-Eastern variety of the early Maurya alphabet;

(f) ca occurs twice in Cetika, but its form does not show much difference from that of the older Maurya one;

(g) two forms of ja are to be found in these inscriptions:—(i) one form resembles the ja in Bühler's Pl. II, Col. X, 15, while (ii) the other form is the usual older Maurya one with a dot in place of the central loop;

(h) ta resembles the southern form in Bühler's Pl. II, Col. VII, 23 and the usual form of later Brāhmī inscriptions;

(i) da occurs in all of the inscriptions discovered on the pillars, copings and cross-bars of the Bodh-Gayā railing, and resembles the angular form of the older Maurya alphabet (Bühler Pl. II, Col. V-VI, 23);

(j) dha occurs once only in Bodhirakhitasa; there is no change in the form of this letter from the 3rd century B.C. till the 10th or 11th century A. D.;

(k) na also occurs in all of the inscriptions from Bodh-Gayā and its base line shows no curvature at all, proving that these inscriptions cannot be placed later than the 2nd century B. C.;

(l) pa shows a greater degree of change; in all cases of its occurrence, it shows two well-formed right angles, at its lower extremeties; cf. Tabapanakasa, Sakaputrasa, Jivāputrāye, Pājāvātiye, Jivāputrāye and Pāsādā.

(m) the form of ba shows no change;

(n) two forms of ma have been found in these inscriptions:—(1) ma with a circle at the lower part and a semicircle over it, as in Amoghasa and (2) ma with a triangle at the lower part and a right angle over it, as in Mitrasa;

(o) two forms of pa also are to be found: the first form is the notched one, which is to be found on the coping inscriptions only, and the second form, that with the curve below, is to be found in pillar-inscriptions;

(p) ra is always represented by a curved line;

(q) va shows the formation of a triangle at its base in the place of the circle;

(r) two forms of the dental sa are to be found: on one of the inscribed cross-bars, we find a slight curve to the left, attached to the lower extremity of the lower hook, cf. sa in Amoghasa; the other form is the usual older Maurya one, where in some cases, the elongation of the lower hook, marks a slight modification;

(s) ha has been found only once in the inscription recently discovered by the late Dr. Bloch, where it occurs in a ligature. The form of this letter, in the word Brahmamitra is extremely cursive and shows that this hooked form is peculiar to the eastern variety of the older alphabets of Northern India;

(t) The newly discovered inscription has supplied a new letter ña which is to be found in the first word in rāño, and resembles the form in the Bhārhut and the Pabhosa alphabets with a downward elongation of the left vertical line.

No inscription, which can safely be assigned to the 1st century B. C. or A. D., has been found anywhere in North-Eastern India, except at Sārnāth. The records which can be assigned to the 1st century B. C. are very few in number:

(i) Inscription on the upper side of the lower horizontal bar of the stone-railing surrounding the old stūpa in the south chapel of the main shrine. The second half of the inscription only, is of earlier date, the first half belonging to the second century A. D. (not the 3rd or 4th as Messrs. Konow and Marshall imagine). The date of the second half also has not been correctly given. It is impossible to assign it to the 2nd century B. C. The shortening of the verticals in pa and ha, as well as the curvature in the base line of na, indicates that the record must be ssigned to the 1st century B. C.

(ii) "When clearing the south chapel, the top of a stone railing became visible above the floor … a short votive inscription on one of the stones, places the erection of the railing in or before the 1st century B.C." Here also the second part of the inscription only can be referred to the first century B.C. This part consists of the word "Parigahetāvaṁ".

(iii) Inscriptions on the pillars of a railing around a votive stūpa. The first of these inscriptions (No. III) probably belongs to the 2nd century B.C. The probable reading is:—Sihāye Sāhijāteyikāye thabho. The second inscription (No. IV) has been very badly preserved. The fac-simile shows:—

1. ...niya Sonade (va).

2. Thabho dāna (ṁ).

"The pillar-gift of Sonadeva (Svarṇadeva) of........." Inscription No. II which ends with the word "Dānaṁ thabho undoubtedly belongs to the early Maurya period of the 3rd century B. C.

(iv) Inscription on a rail stone (? cross bar):— Bhariniye Sahaṁ Yateyikā (ye)—the gift of Yateyikā with Bharini. This inscription also belongs to the 1st century B.C., as indicated by the form of medial i and the shortening of the verticals in ya.

(v) Inscription of the king Aśvaghoṣa, the year 40. incised on the pillar of Aśoka..............." "...............rparigeyhe rājña Aśvaghoshasya chatariśe Savachhare hematapakhe prathame divase dasame." Certain words following the above record, have been read by Dr. Venis as follows: Sutithage 4, 200, 9. Drs. Fleet and Venis hold that this date should be referred to the Mālava-Vikrama era and arrive at 111-151 A.D. as the date of Aśvaghosa. If Drs. Fleet and Venis be correct, then it shall have to be admitted that, Kaṇiṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsudeva reigned in the latter half of the second and third centuries A.D., because in a treatise on Palaeography, it is impossible to admit, that the group of Kuṣāna inscriptions, came before those of Aśvaghoṣa, the Kṣatrapas Nahapāna and Śoḍāsa, and the archaic inscriptions from Mathurā.

(vi) Fragmentary inscriptions of the time of Aśvagho a:—

1. Rājña Aśvaghora (sya)......... 2. Upala he ma (ṁtapakhe?)………

The principal characteristics of the above inscriptions from Sārnāth are:—

(i) total absence of any difference from the forms of the characters of the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. found in North-Western India;

(ii) consequently we find the general shortening of vertical lines, angularisation of curved strokes, and in the case of medial vowel signs, cursiveness of the angular forms of the older Maurya Brāhmī.

D. Kuṣāna Inscriptions.

Under the above title the inscriptions of the great Kuṣāṇa Kings, Kaṇiṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsudeva are to be considered, the dates in whose inscriptions are generally taken to be Śaka dates. At present two theories are current about the dates used in the inscriptions of the Kuṣāṇa kings mentioned above.

(i) That the dates in the Kuṣāṇa incriptions should be referred to the Mālava-Vikrama era which was established by Kaṇiṣka in the year 57 B.C. The expounders of this theory hold that the inscriptions of the Satraps Śoḍāsa and Rañjuvula fall after those of Kaṇiṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsudeva in the chronological order. This fact cannot, for a moment, be considered to be true, in a paper on Palæography.

(ii) That the dates in the Kuṣāṇa inscriptions should be referred to the Śaka era, which was founded by Kaṇiṣka in the year 78 A.D. In the following pages I have adopted this theory, which was started by Oldenberg and Fergusson, adopted by Bühler and Rapson, defended by myself and finally accepted by Mr. V.A. Smith. The inscriptions of the Ku āṇa period (1st and 2nd centuries A.D.) are more abundant in North-Western India. On this point Bühler says: "The next step in the development of Brāhmī of Northern India is illustrated by the inscriptions from the time of the Kuṣāṇa kings Kaniṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsuska-Vāsudeva, the first among whom made an end of the rule of the older Śakas in the Eastern and Southern Punjab. The inscriptions with the names of these kings which run from the years 4 to 98 (according to the usually accepted opinions, of the Śaka era of A.D. 77-78, or of the 4th century of the Selukid era) are very numerous in Mathurā and its neighbourhood, and are found also in Eastern Rājputānā and in the Central India Agency (Sāñei)."

In subsequent years a number of inscriptions have been discovered in North-Eastern India, which can without doubt be referred to this particular period:—

(i) the Bodh-Gayā Fragmentary inscription on the diamond throne (vajrāsana);

(ii) the Sārnāth Umbrella-staff inscription of the 3rd year of Kāṇiṣka;

(iii) the inscription on the base of the Bodhisattva Image dedicated in the 3rd year of Kaṇiṣka;

(iv) the inscription at the back of the Bodhisattva image of the 3rd year of Kāṇiṣka;

(v) inscription on the pedestal of an image of Bodhisattva from Sāhet Māhet (the ancient Śrāvastī);

(vi) inscription on an umbrella-staff, now in the Indian Museum, probably found in the ruins of Sāhet Māhet;

(vii) inscription on the pedestal of an image of Bodhisattva found at Sāhet Māhet;

(viii) fragmentary inscription on a fragment of a sculpture discovered at Rājagṛha (Rājgir), in the Pātnā District;

(ix) fragmentary inscription on the pedestal of an image discovered at Rājagṛha;

The records of the 1st century A.D. fall into two distinct and separate classes.—

I. The Eastern variety of the North-Indian Alphabet of the Kuṣāṇa period, earlier variety. All the inscriptions enumerated above belong to this class. Six years ago, I stated, that inscription No. VIII belongs to the class of Epigraphs known as inscriptions written in the Northern-Kṣatrapa alphabet, but now I agree with Dr. Vogel in calling them by the new name "Early Kuṣāṇa." Inscription No. I. is by far the oldest inscription of the Kuṣāṇa period, discovered up to date, in North-Eastern India. It was incised on the edge of a slab of stone, which is at present lying under the Bodhi tree, at Bodh-Gaya. It was in a very bad state of preservation

PLATE III. Inscription of the time of Mahendrapala-Ramgaya-Gaya.