Art. XX.—Inscriptions from the Boodh Caves, near Joonur. Communicated in a Letter to Sir John Malcolm, G.C.B., President of the Literary Society, Bombay

Extract

Destitute of the prospect of leisure to complete a general description and comparison, long since undertaken, of the cave-temples and excavations, Boodh, Jain, and Brahminical, on the western side of India, involving also the placing in juxtaposition the various inscriptions in unknown characters, to be found in these excavations, I am happy to anticipate a distant period, and at once to lay before the Society some inscriptions obtained lately from the Boodh excavations in the neighbourhood of the town of Joonur in the Poona collectorate. The multiplication of Boodh inscriptions in the hands of the learned, and the early introduction of any new inscriptions to the notice of the profound Orientalists in Europe, may facilitate the attempts now making to understand the lithographic records of a mighty people, who, equally with their language, have disappeared from India, leaving, however, such multitudinous and stupendous monuments of their industry, taste, power, wealth, and numbers, as to excite the most unlimited astonishment in the contemplative mind, that a great nation should have gone down the stream of time without leaving a tradition even of its existence in its native country, the present inhabitants of Western India being more ignorant of the origin of these mighty works of art, than the European stranger who visits them from curiosity.