Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/132

120 INSCRIPTIONS [INDIAN. the topes at Amaravati, Sdnchi, and elsewhere. In the caves of Nasik there are some historical records, and the great cave-temple of Karlen is recorded to have been con structed for an emperor named Devabhuti, by a foreigner called " Dhanukdkatd " or " Dhinukakati," which name is understood to represent Xenocrates. In a Jain cave-temple at Badami there is an inscription of the Chdlukya dynasty, dated in 578 A.D. The caves of Elephanta and Ellora are of a much later date. There have been many explorers of the caves and copyists of the inscriptions. Dr J. Wilson successfully interpreted some of the inscriptions, but Dr Stevenson has been the greatest decipherer. The letters of the inscriptions in the caves are often formed with a want of precision and distinctness, and the copies obtained are not always satisfactory, so the translations are open to some doubt, and are capable of improvement. Soon after the inscriptions of Asoka we have those of the Turushka or Indo-Scythic kingsKanishka andHuvishka, the Kanerke and Ooerke of the bilingual coins, whose names are linked with a third as " Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka " in the Kashmir chronicle called Raja Tarangini. Their inscriptions have been found in Afghanistan, in the Punjab, and in the hills, and as far east as Mathvird. With the exception of those at Mathura, they are in the Ariano- Pali character. They are all short ; some consist of only six or seven words. The majority of the inscriptions are dated. The Macedonian months are used, but there is no certainty as to the era. The word used is " Samvatsara," and, as there is an era so called, some maintain that they are dated in that era, but as the word " samvatsara " means also year, it may imply a year of some unknov^n era or of a king s reign. Their period is about the beginning of the Christian era. The first inscription discovered was on a stone slab found by General Court in a large tope at Manikyala in the Punjab ; the longest is one punched on a brass vase extracted by Masson from a tope at Wardak in Afghanistan. The former was discovered just before Prinsep s death, but he did no more with it than picking out the king s name as " Kaneshm," and conjecturing that the date figured xx9 signified cxx. General Cunningham subsequently interpreted the date as 44.6, and the title of the king correctly as " Kanishka, maharaja of the Gushang tribe." No further discoveries of importance were made until the year 1862, when Mr Roberts obtained, at Hasan Abdal in the Punjab, a copper plate with five lines of inscription, which he sent to the Royal Asiatic Society. The letters on this plate were clearly written, and, when read by Professor Dowson, the record furnished the long desired key to the numeral system, for the date was given both in words and figures. The forms of the numerals had made Prinsep and others suspect a Roman influence, but the figure 9 proved to be 1 and the x equivalent to 4. The inscription was a record made by a satrap named Liako Kusuluko of his having deposited a relic of Sdkyamuni (Buddha) in an institution near Taxila. Before the pub lication of the translation copies of this inscription were sent to India with the explanation of the date, and with a call for independent translations of the text. General Cunningham made a translation which was revised by Babu Rdjendra Lai, and when brought together the versions were found to be in close agreement. Professor Dowson succeeded in making out considerable portions of the Manikyala, Wardak, and other inscriptions, and found that all had reference to the deposit of relics. No progress has since been made in the interpretation of these inscriptions, although there is ample scope for further study. The Manikyala inscription is dated in the year 18, and was made in the reign of Kanishka ; the Wardak urn is dated in the year 51, and was inscribed in the reign of his successor Huvishka. There are other inscriptions, in which the names of these kings appear, and the names of King Moga or Moa and of Gondophares have also been found. Several short inscriptions in this character owe their discovery to General Cunningham, who has been most persevering in his search and constant in his endeavours to interpret them. Another series of inscrip tions of these Indo-Scythian rulers was obtained by General Cunningham from the ruins of the Buddhist temples and other buildings at old Mathura. These inscriptions are in the Indian Pali character and the Sanskrit language, and have been translated by Professor Dowson. Several of them are dated " /Sam," the common abbreviated form of Samvatsara. The earliest certain date is 44, and as one of the dates is as high as 280, it is clear that some era is intended. If it be the Samvatsara era, the dates range from 13 B.C. to 337 A.D. These inscrip tions have two peculiarities in which they agree with the practice of the inscriptions in western India : instead of months they use the triple series of seasons, and the numerals are arbitrary symbols having little or no arith metical relation to each other. The explanation of these figures has occupied the attention of Prinsep, Dr Steven son, General Cunningham, Dr Bhau Ddji, and Mr E. Thomas, and may be said to be accomplished. Some further inscriptions have since been found at Mathurd and translated by General Cunningham. The whole series furnishes the names of Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasu- deva [BAZOAHO of the coins], all of whom bear the arro gant title J)evaputra, "son of God." One of the last discovered inscriptions is dated as early as the year 5. About the period of the Indo-Scythians there was in Surdshtra, on the western coast of India, a dynasty of rulers who called themselves Kshatrapas or satraps, and are known as the Sdh or more properly Sinha kings. These have left some inscriptions commencing with their founder Nahapdna, but they are better represented by their coins, the legends on which are in the Indian Pdli character. On some of the earlier ones the distinctive name of the king is given also in Ariano-Pdli. An inscription in a cave at Ndsik records its construction and dedication by Nahapdna. The most important of their inscriptions is that of Rudra Dama, the seventh king of the dynasty, dated in the year 72, but of what era is undetermined. This is engraven on the famous rock of Girndr near Jundgarh, the same as that on which the edicts of Piyadasi are inscribed. It is in Indian Pdli, and was first deciphered by Prinsep. Since then the trans-- lation has been revised by Professor Wilson, Dr Bhau Ddji, and Professor Eggeling. It commemorates the repair of a dam or embankment of the river Paldsini. Its most interesting passage records the fact that the same dam had been formerly repaired by " the Maurya rdja Chandra- gupta," the classical Sandrakoptos, and it is the only monumental mention known of that king. It also names Asoka specifically as "Asoka Maurya," not as Piyadasi. Mr Burgess has published a fine collotype of this inscription in his Arcli&ological Survey. After the Sdhs come the Guptas of Kanauj, a dynasty which must not be confounded with the Maurya dynasty of which Chandragupta (Sandrakoptos) was a member. The inscriptions of the Guptas are in a slightly advanced form of the Indian Pali. One, the first known, translated by Dr Mill, was inscribed by Samudra-Gupta on the old Asoka column at Alldhdbdd, another is inscribed on the Asoka rock at Girndr, being the third on that rock. It records another repair of the Paldsini dam by Skanda-Gupta, and a copy with a translation by Bhau Ddji is published in Burgess s Survey. All the Gupta inscriptions are dated in the Gupta-Mla, the Gupta era, the epoch of which has long been and still remains a subject of dispute. Other inscrip tions of this dynasty have been found at Mathura, on a