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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. IX.
returned to me. This is, indeed, to be regretted, as no other scholar could have done better justice to this important inscription.
The inscription was originally discovered at Vasantgadh, about five miles to the south of Pind wårå, which is the principal town of the district of the same name, Sirobi State, and which is also a station on the Rajputând-Malwa Railway running from Ahmedabad to Ajmer. The stone was lying utterly neglected outside the shrine of Khimel måtd recently repaired, of which, I was told, it originally formed part. Vasantgadh itself is now desolated, but many people of the Sirohi State come there to pay their homage to the goddess. The shrine is looked after by the Bhils of the adjoining hamlets, and they had for a long time atilised the stone for sharpening their implements. As soon as the news of the find of this ancient inscription stone reached the ears of Pandit Sukhånandji, an antiquary of Sirohi, he hastened to the spot, took it into his possession, and brought it to Sirohi. It is now lying in safo custody in his house.
The inscription contains 17 lines of writing, which covers a space about 1' 11" broad by l' high. The writing is, on the whole, well-preserved, but the proper right portion of it is a little worn, which is doubtless due to its having been used for whetting weapons. Again, there are two or three cracks running horizontally across the inscription and injuring a few of the letters in lines 1, 2, 10 and 11, but, with care, nearly the whole of the inscription can be made out with certainty on the original stone.
The size of the letters varies from " to " The characters belong to the northern class of alphabets, which was prevalent during the 7th and 8th centuries. The chief peculiarity of this type is the representation of the medial vowels a, i, i and the four diphthongs far more frequently by superscript signs placed above the letters than by vertical strokes attached to the sides of the letters to which they belong. This is clearly noticeable e.g. in the Udaipur inscription of the Guhile prince Aparåjita, the Jhålrapatan inscription of Durgagana, and the Kaņsuvam inscription of Dhavala; and this characteristic is exhibited by our inscription also. The characters of our record are, a8 pointed out by Professor Kielhorn, almost identical with those of the Udaipur inscription. As in the latter, we have the tridented form of the letter y and a distinct separate sign for b. The letter y occurs in the present record no less than thirty times, and, in all these cases except one, the tridented form alone is employed. In this exceptional case (in yôyanidri, 1. 1) like that in the Udaipur inscription, the letter is indicated by the old sign occurring, e.g. in the Maukhari inscriptions. We also have special forms for final k, t, and 1. In the Udaipur epigraph, final t and m are represented by ordinary signs for those letters with a small horizontal stroke placed above each. Here, on the other hand, final k, t, and n are denoted by their usual signs, but with the tops a little curved towards their proper right (e.g. in vanik, 1. 10, Osakrit, 1.3, and gunun, 1. 6). The sign for the upadhmaniya occurs three times in 'nripatihpati, 1. 4, and priyah-priyaih=prasray-adio, 1. 7. The jihrámúliya occars only once, in vachanayutaik=kú[ryya]°, 1. 4. Again, our inscription shows a tendency to nse some signs with a little ornamentation. Thus, the anusvára is often represented, not by a simple dot but by something like an asterisk (e.g. in satatan, 1. 3). The superscript signs of medial vowels are also sometimes ornamentally engraved (e.g. au in orasy-ajau, 1. 3.) We further find the somewhat rare signs for si, dh, th and ph. With regard to th, it deserves to be noted that it is exactly like dh (e.g. in brahman-átithi', 1. 8), and can only be distinguished by having regard to the sense of the word wherein it occurs.
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit, and, exceptiug the words on namah at the commencement and the list of the names of the goshthikas contained in lines 13-17, the text is in verse. Solecisms are not infrequent. I need only point out the verse (11) which specifies the date, the language of which is anything but grammatical. In respect of orthography, the following points may be notioed. Consonants are, as a rule, doubled after r ;'visarga followed by s is changed to that letter; ri has once been substituted for ri, in sringa°, 1.1; on the other hand,
