130 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [June, 1873. Inscnptions and Sdsanams. The numerous inscriptions at Hampi have all, at one time or another, been deciphered. A list of them, with translations, will be found in Yol. XX. of tho Asiatic Researches, appended to an essay by Mr. Ravenshaw, B.C.S. . . . There are several long inscriptions in the Hali-Kanarese character at Kurgodu, in the Belari T&luqa, but they are so worn with ago as to be in many places illegible. An inscription on the wall at Kenchengodu, in the same taluqa, is not of much interest, for it only gives the names of tbe village officers at the time the pagoda in that village was built. There is another long inscription on a stone lying on the tank-band at Chikka Tumbul, which has never been deciphered. In such places as Bel&ri, Guti, Raidftrg, Harpanhalli, and Pennakonda, where inscriptions might have been expected, none are now to be found. There has indeed once been an inscription on ono of the rocks at Guti, but it is almost obliterated, and hardly two consecutive letters can be made out. Diligent search would doubtless result in the discovery of other inscrip¬ tions or dedications, the existence of which is unsuspected or unknown beyond the limits of the village where they are. In connection with the subject of this chapter, mention must be made of a peculiar hill about eigh¬ teen miles from Bel&ri. Captain Newbold was the first to call public attention to it, and his account will be found at page 134 of No. 18 of the Journal of the Madras Literary Society. About three miles beyond Kodutanni, and close to the Antapftr pass, on tho right of the road, there is a small hill about fifteen feet high and four hundred in circumference, and surrounded by hills of considerable elevation. The summit of this hill or mount is rounded, and the surface partially covered with scanty patches of dry grass, from which crop out masses of tufaceous scoriae. The hills around are composed of a ferruginous sand¬ stone in which minute scales of mica are found disseminated, but this mound is evidently com¬ posed of very different materials, and when struck it emits a hollow cavernous sound. Some have thought it of volcanic origin, but Captain New- bold thought it more likely to be the remains of an ancient furnace. The local tradition is that this mound is composed of the ashes of an enor¬ mous Rakshasa or giant, whose funeral pile this was. The giant’s name was Edimbassurali, and he was living here when the five sons of king Pandu visited the country. The giant’s sister fell in love with one of them, named Bhim- sena, and instigated him to kill her brother, who was opposed to the alliance. Another account is that a great battle acccompanied by fearful loss of life was fought here. After the conflict the wounded and the dead were gathered together and placed so as to form an enormous funeral pile, which was then fired. These ashes, or whatever they are, effervesce when treated with dilute sulphuric acid, and thus show traces of carbonate of lime. Colonel Lawford thought the ashes were such as were found at funeral piles, and very dissimilar to those formed in lime-kilns. Dr. Bonza thought it was limestone slab, but certainly not pumice-stone, or in any way of volcanic origin. “ The stone is white and osseous-looking, and internally porous and reticulated.” There are two smaller mounds at the foot of the Copper Mountain *. MISCELLANEA. NOTES ON EARLY-PBINTED TAMIL BOOKS. Some little time ago when reading Fra Paolino Bartolomeo’s Voyage to the East Indies the fol¬ lowing passage attracted my notice, as indicating a circumstance in the history of printing in this country which, as far as I was aware, was un¬ known :— “ The art of printing, in all probability, never existed in India. * * * The first book printed in this country was the Dodrina Christiana of Giovanni Gonsalvez, a lay brother of the order of the Jesuits, who, as far as I know, first cast Tamu- lic characters, in the year 1577.f After this ap¬ peared in 1578 a book entitled Flos Sanctorum, which was followed by the Tamulic Dictionary of Father Antonio de Proenza, printed in the
- pp. 295, 296.
year 1679, at Ambalacate, on the coast of Malabar. F/om that period tho Danish missionaries at Tranquebar have printed many works, a catalogue of which may be found in Alberti Fabricii Saluta- ris Lux Evangdii, p. 395.” That the books mentioned as having been print¬ ed at Ambalacatta, in the Cochin territory, in the Tamil character, had a circulation in their time in the Tamil country, seems evident from the follow¬ ing extract from Sartorius’ Diat'y for 1732, with which I fell in also in the course of reading. On a visit that this Danish missionary paid, in com¬ pany with others from Tranquebar, to Paleiacatta [Pulicat, 23 miles N. of Madras], in February of that year, he states: “ The Malabar Catechist t Conf. Ind. Antiq. vol. II. p. 98.
