Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2011
In January, 1862, Mr. A. A. Roberts, of the Bengal Civil Service, presented to the Society two copper plates inscribed with Bactrian Pali characters, said to have been found at Hussun Abdal, near Rawal Pindee, in the Punjab. These plates were submitted to the examination of Mr. Norris, and that gentleman at once picked out the names of Takhaśila nagara (Taxila) and Śákyamuni, proving the inscription to be one of more than ordinary importance. Having made a transcript of the document, he wrote a few notes upon it which were read at one of the Society's meetings, and he then suggested that the plates should be sent to me. The interest I had taken in these Bactrian inscriptions from the time of our joint labours on the Kapur di Giri edicts was well known to him, and was sufficient to ensure a careful if unsuccessful consideration of the newly-discovered inscription. In this recommendation the Society acquiesced and placed the plates at my disposal for examination and report. I now propose to state the results of my investigation.
page 228 note 1 Cunningham's, Colonel readings of these dates were, I believe, first made known in the year 1854 (Beng. Journal, xxiii, p. 703Google Scholar), in which he states his interpretation to rest “upon the authority of a stone slab in my own possession, which gives in regular order the nine numerals of as early a period as the Sah coins of the Satraps of Saurashtra;” and he then continues to state in a note that he discovered in the year 1852, “that these numeral figures, from 5 to 9, were the initial letters of their Pashtu names written in Ariano Pali. Thus 5 is represented bjp for pinz; 6 by sp for spaj; 7 by a for avo; 8 by th foratha, the a having been already used for 7; and 9 by n for nah. Even the 4 is a eft; but as the Pashtu word is salor, this form must have been derived from India. The first four figures are given in two distinct forms, the second set being the older; and the two forms show, in the clearest manner, how the straight horizontal strokes of Asoka's, and even of later days, gradually became the 1, 2,3 of India, from which they were transmitted through the Arabs to Europe.” The objections to this theory have already been very forcibly urged by MrThomas, (Jour. As. Soc. Beng. xxiv, p. 556Google Scholar; Prinsep. Vol. I, 144, 145), and I should not have noticed it so fully here but for the reference to the inscribed stone upon which the theory ig stated to have been founded. It is very much to be regretted that no copy of this stone has ever been made public for the satisfaction of the learned in these matters, as it is quite clear that Colonel Cunningham's interpretation and method of application are uncertain or erroneous, indeed he himself seems to have mistrusted his own renderings, as in his first paper above quoted he read from left to Tight, but in his last (Beng. J. 1862, page 303) he reverses the method. The dates of which he gave solutions in the first paper, are—
1. Manikyala (pi. ix), = 446.
2. Ohind (pi. x, fig. 2), month = 44.
3. " " year 333.
4. Panjtar (see pi. x, fig 3), year 390.
Upon comparing the first and second of these, it is clear that they were read from left to right; the reading of the last date is unintelligible. In the last paper the reading is from “right to left,” and the numbers (Wardak, pi. x), and (Pl. ix fig. 3), are rendered as 331 and 144, from which also it appears that the figure had in the interim changed its value from 6 to 1. The true value has been given to the figure , 4, from the first; but the reading of as 44 in the date of a month was a manifest error, as has been well urged by ajendra Lai (Beng. J. vol. xxx, 842). Whether the correct rendering of the figure was more than accidental it is impossible to say without a reference to the authority of the “stone slab,” a publication of which document is urgently required for the furtherance of antiquarian knowledge.
page 244 note 1 Mr. Bayley says, “The inscription from Bimaran is also a dedication of a reliquary for the prosperity (pusae) of Sri vechitra … dbatra putra.”
page 246 note 1 Schutz für den Körper, Harnisch, Helm u.s.w.
page 247 note 1 “It is not a little singular that Major Cunningham should have fallen in with so many of these otherwise rare letters ng,—they are infrequent enough in the ordinary language, but we hare no single example of their use in the entire Kapur di Giri inscription, and Prinsep was a long time before he detected the sign at all in the Pali Lat alphabet.”—Thomas in Prinsep, vol. i, p. 103, note. VOL. xx.
page 250 note 1 This is Col. Cunningham's reading of the name on Gen. Ventura's cylinder, and which he supposes to occur again in this inscription. The reading of the name on the. cylinder has been already noticed in page 244.