140
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
The letters are a slight variation of the old Pāli alphabet deciphered by Prinsep. The first sign is a symbol consisting of the swastika and another symbol joined then fol lows :-
Dawaná piya maha rājasa Gamini Tisasa maha lene agata anágata chatu disa sagasa dine. Taking each word separately the first da may possibly be di : but we should expect neither, déwanam being the Páli form, and deweni the Sinhalese; the third letter - E ná may possibly be H. no, but what appears to be the vowel stroke before the upright is probably a natural mark in the rock. Even in regular Pāli the m at the end of genitive plurals being often
dropt, its absence here needs no remark; and possibly the long vowel né is in compensation for the loss of the nasal.
[May 3, 1872.
is not given by Prinsep, and has not I think been found in India, but I have since found it in many places in Ceylon, and there can be no doubt about the meaning of the sign. There is a slight mark at the bottom of the letter which may be a vowel mark for u, if so Sumaha Lene must be taken as the name of the cave.
For
the expression agata andyata, one would expect dyatóndigata, but I have subsequently found it in many places, and it is usually agata andgata the Sinhalese understand the corresponding ex pression duráut náutiu'ſ in the sense of all those who have come to this place, and those who have not come, but it may also mean all—in the
sense of present and future. The expression is not noticed either in Böhtlingk-IRoth or in Mr. Childers' Pāli Dictionary. Agataiyatá in Fausböll's Dasaratha Jātaka, p. 31, means pass
only form given in Thomas's edition of Prinsep. The word rāja is remarkable. In the first place raja is the more usual form in the dialect
ers by.t Chatulisa is the form always found on the caves for chatullisa translated by Turnour: “who had come from the four quarters of the globe,” but it seems that the idea “who had
5f Ceylon cave inscriptions in which the vowel is
come” is not contained in the word, for in the
seldom, I believe never, written separately as it is here, and the j is the sign given by Prin sep for the māprána jh : but there is not the slightest doubt about the reading.
dhapura district, and only in the form Tisarà, which is probably derived immediately from the
Walligama Inscription; the corresponding Sin halese expression is—s a tara digin w a d an a (sanghaya wahanse) which gives a present sense. In sayasa the first sa is the same as the geni tive of Tisa noticed above, and the genitive case sa is expressed by the letter given by Prinsep. These two characters are therefore interchangeable, and do not represent T and H. The more usual sign of the genitive is ha, and in the double inscription at Mānā Kanda at the Mahānāma Pirievena (built by Agra Bodhi I. about A. D. 600) sa occurs on one and ha on the other side of the cave. There is no sign
Sanskrit Tišya.
whatever for the nasal, and I have not found
The J y of piya is, at least in Ceylon, an older form than J, which also occurs here, and is the
In Gamini Tisa the first letter may possibly be gu instead of A ga. The Sinhalese form of the Pāli name Gämini is Gemunu (e to be pro nounced like English a in hat, gap, &c.). The name Tissa, so common in Pāli, is now unknown, except among a low caste of tom-tom beaters
(herawo), and among them only in the Anura Who this Gāmini Tissa was is
not mentioned in the books. 'relation to
He must be some
the genitive would be inexplicable, but it is ex
pressly stated in Mahāwanso" that the king left no son: as, however, he reigned for 40 years, it is possible that he had a son who may have been sub-king of the Dambula district. Duttha Gämini, Siúhalese Dutu Gemunu, calls himself in inscriptions Gåmini Abhaya; and uses a later form of the alphabet.
The sa of the genitive in this word is most remarkable, and was one of the greatest ob stacles to a decipherment of the inscription : it
- Turnour, Mahdiwanso, p. 124.
+ Mahdiwanso, 196. 3. of Ceylon As. Soc. 1870-71, p. 21; and vide ante
tºurnal
p. 99.
either the nasal or the aspirate expressed any
Dewänampiya Tissa, or the use of where, either in the cave dialect, or in the later flat rock inscriptions of Ceylon. At first I thought that sagho in the Mahāwansoš might be a transitional form, but it must be merely a misprint, for two MSS. in my possession, one be longing to Yātrāmulla Unnanse, and the one in the newly formed Government Library at Colombo all read sail gho.
It is not easy to state with certainty what part of the Pāli verb is represented by dine, but
it is probable the p.p.p. In a double inscription at Diwulwewa in Anuradhapura district, dine § Page 207, 6. ...] Whose recent death is an irreparable loss to Oriental literature, see p. 162.
