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No. 23.] NEW BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SCYTHIAN PERIOD.
sculptures discovered and figured by Growse and others which were presented to the Agra Museum. The collection thus comprises the following materials :
(1) Some of the sculptures collected by Growse and other local officers of the Mathura District up to the year 1886.
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(2) The sculptures discovered during the excavations carried on by Drs. Führer and Burgess at Mathura during the years 1888-96.
(3) The sculptures discovered by Dr. Führer at Ramnagar, the ancient Ahichchhattra in the Bareilly District in the winter of 1891-92.
None of the inscriptions from Ramnagar have ever been properly edited. Translations of three of them have appeared in Dr. Führer's Report of the Epigraphical Section for 1901-02, out of which only one has been found. The rest could not be traced either in the galleries or the Taḥkhana of the Lucknow Provincial Museum.
Fourteen out of the twenty-one inscriptions edited here are absolutely new. The late Dr. Bühler published three inscriptions with facsimiles and the rest have been casually noticed or edited by Messrs. Growse, Smith and others. Those which have been already edited by Bübler are republished because, on examining the original, I found that his readings required considerable modifications. Two of the inscriptions (Nos. II. and VI.) were published by Growse with facsimiles in his Mathura.
The excavations at Ramnagar have yielded some important records. One of them (No. I.) mentions the territorial name Pañchala, while another inscription (No. XVI.) evidently from the same place refers to the name of the capital city [AdhiJchchhattra. The identity of Ramnagar with Ahichchhattra seems to be certain.
The language of the inscriptions is corrupt Sanskrit. I am indebted to Mr. Marshall for the photographs published here. They were taken by his photographer Babu Brajendra Nath Dey last winter.
The back views of two images, viz. that of the year 9 (Plate I.) and of the year 80 (Plate VIII.), show the deterioration of the Mathura school of sculpture. The subject is the same in both cases, vis. a tree with flowers. The earlier sculpture shows a tall tree with a graceful trank and proportionate flowers and leaves. But the later sculpture is ugly and disproportionate. No other Mathură sculpture in the Lucknow Museum bears any carving on its back though many of them are carved in the round.
1.-INSCRIPTION ON A COPING-STONE.
The inscription was found on the top of a split coping of yellow sandstone which was used as a prop to a large "tablet of homage." It was completely hidden under the large slab and was discovered when the latter was being taken out to be cleaned. The sculpture came most probably from Ramnagar, the ancient Ahichchhattra, in the Bareilly District. The Carator's Report for the month of April 1892 mentions "1 coping stone with inscription of the Saka era (dated Samvat 5) Excavated from the old site of a large Buddhist temple at Ramnagar, Rohilkhand." Dr. Führer most probably took the word Panchaliye 'of Parichala in line 8 for a date. The alphabet belongs to the class which Bühler called Kshatrapa characters. They are older than what Messrs. Vogel and Lüders style Early Kushana. The inscription is dated in the first year of the reign of a king (?) whose name is lost.
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1 V. A. Smith's Jaina Stupa, pl. VIII.
North-Western Provinces and Oudh Provincial Museum Minutes, Vol. V. p. 5, App. A.
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