32
-
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
and its members were priests selected for their learning and scholarship, from the principal Ceylon monasteries. The procedure was as follows:—After the formal opening of the Synod, each member was furnished with a manuscript in the Sinhalese cha racter, which he took to an apartment assigned to him, and collated with a number of Ceylon, Burmah and Siam copies of the same work. All obvious errors in his manuscript he corrected at once, but where a passage was doubtful, he merely marked it. On an appointed day each member carried his corrected manuscript to the hall of assembly, where in a public sitting of the Synod all the corrected manuscripts were compared together. When the corrections were identical in all the manuscripts, they were generally adopted without much loss of time, but in many doubtful or difficult passages the reading was not finally fixed without long and anxious discussion. The first session of the Synod lasted seven months, and was devoted exclusively to the Vinaya, a revised and authorized version of which, together with its Arthakathá and Tikas, was deposited in safe hands. The next meeting of the Synod was held after a considerable interval, and was devoted to the correction of the Sūtra Pitaka. On this occasion a somewhat different plan was followed, for the members had been instructed to
correct at their own monasteries the manuscripts entrusted to them, and when the Synod met, it was able to sit daily until the work of fixing the text of the Sūtras was ended. The Abhidharma Pitaka is now undergoing revision, and the labours of the Synod are drawing to a close. When they are com pleted, a palm-leaf copy of the authorized version of the sacred texts will be deposited in one of the Ceylon monasteries, and the public will be permit ted to inspect and transcribe the different books. In the very extensive collation of MSS. made by the Synod, it was found that the Ceylon MSS. were generally more accurate than those of Burmah and Siam.—The Academy.
[JANTARY 5, 1872.
tand Kaikalliope. A description of the coins and he circumstances of their discovery, is being prepar ed for the London Academy.—Delhi Gazette, Oct. 11. DISCOVERY OF COPPER AXES.
At the last meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a letter was read from the Assistant Com missioner, Pachumba, describing two ancient cop per axes which he has presented to the Society. The narrative of their discovery is very curious. It appears that they had been found by a villager just below the surface of a hillock, round which he was cultivating land.
But where this hillock is, he
steadily refuses, in spite of an offer of twenty rupees, to tell to any one, lest the demon of the spot should revenge itself upon him. He has, he declares, already suffered at his hands. The night after he found the things, he had a dream in which a gnome of terrible aspect appeared before him. He was no ordinary looking spirit, but of prodigi ous proportions, his skin being red and his clothes black, whilst a profusion of hair hung down his back from his head to his heels, each hair being as thick as a man's wrist.
Having dismounted from a
tiger, which had carried him to the villager's door, he entered the hut and, pointing to the copper pieces, informed the trembling man that they were his (the gnome's) property. The man at once expressed his willingness to give them up, but the gnome would have none of them. He wanted in exchange four hairs of the villager's right knee, and in return offered to relinquish all claim to the treasure which, he said, lay buried under the other hillocks in that locality. But the much coveted hairs the man would not part with at any price. So the gnome mounted his tiger, and trotted off in high dudgeon. When the day broke, the villager proceeded to do a little ploughing before resuming his excavations at the hillock, but as he passed that spot, one of his bullocks dropped down stone-dead, and within a few days the remaining two bullocks which he possessed died also. Upon this he deserted that place, and took up his residence in the village where he now lives. This, he says, happened three years ago, and till last year he concealed the copper which he believed to be gold ; but thinking
|.
e might then realise something by them, he carried them off in great secrecy to a European official, to
DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT COINS.
whom he imparted the information of where he had found them. But this little indiscretion brought
ABOUT a month and a half ago, someof the villagers of Sompat, while digging out a ruin in the vicinity of an old tank, discovered an earthern pot, (not unlike a
fresh troubles on him ; for when he returned home,
common sorai) containing three sérs and a half of
demon's treasures lie hidden.—Pioneer.
his little girl sickened and died. For these valid reasons he refuses to point out the hillock where the
silver-coin. The earthern pot was buried about QUERY.
seven feet underground; the coins at the bottom of
the pot were completely defaced by corrosion,
Will any of the correspondents of the Indian
though nearly three-fourths of its contents were in a very good state of preservation. On examination the coins were found to belong to Graeco-Baktrian Kings. The coins of Menander are certainly more numerous than those of any other king, though by
Antiquary help me by obtaining the com-plete alphabet of the ancient characters used in the
far the best impressions are on the coins of King
ed the consonants with the short a. The present Maldivian characters are sufficiently known.
Philoxenus. The following are the names of the
kings whose coins have been deciphered:—Menander, Philoxenus, Diomedes, Antialkider, Apollodotus, Hermaeus, Heliakles, Heaton, Antemachus, Hermaeus,
Maldivian islands?
The form of each consonant
changes completely according to the affixed vowel, and the late Captain Christopher, I.N., only publish ANTOINE d’ABBADIE,
Membre de l'Institute France.
Hendaye, Basses Pyrenées, Nov. 29, 1871.
