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No. 23.) NEW BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS OF THE SCYTHLAN PERIOD.
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year 1891-92. Bat the inscription on it has neither been published nor noticed as yet. It is incised on the square base of a pilaster made out of the back of a Digambara Jaina imago (Plate V). Only the waist and the thighs of the Jina are extant (Plate IV). The piluster on the reverse is most probably the staff of the umbrella under which the image originally stood. Sach cases are by no means uncommon in the Mathuri sculptures of t1 Scythian period. The juscription, though fragmentary, is an important one. It presents a large number of difficulties both in decipherment and translation. The most important part however is the date which is fairls legible.
TEXT.
1 Sa[m] 70 1 va 1 di 10 5 2 e (?)taye pavayê ha3 tiya(?) Munasimita (?) ye (8) 4 Minirava sushoti dhitu 5 H[ēmadēva (saya) . ...
Remarks. 1. The anusrāra is indistinct. 2. The vowel e is unlike any Brāhmi letter but resembles the Kharoslıthi va.
3. The second letter in the third line is also new. It resembles the symbol for 10 to some extent, but the presence of a numerical symbol at this place cannot be explained.
4. The remaining syllables in the third line seem to constitute & proper name with the genitive case ending. The letter na is rare in Mathura inscriptions, although it is to be found in the inscriptions of the Western Satraps.
5. Of more interest is the form sushots in the next line. The o in sho is formed by the combination of a and w and the affi, ti is quite new. It resembles to some extent the Bengali affis ta as in māmāta," maternal uncle's son," pisata, "son of a paternal aunt." The word probably is an apabhrana of the Sanskrit svasriya and the whole phrase most probably means "sister's daughter's daughter."
. TRANSLATION. "In the year 71, the 1st (month) of the rainy season, the 16th day; on that date specified as) above,. . . . .of Munasimită (?) . . . . . . . . . the sister's daughter's daughter of Minirava . . . . . . . . of Hēmadēva.
IX-INSCRIBED CHATURMUKHA FROM RAMNAGAR, THE YEAR 74.
The discovery of this inscription was announced by Dr. Führer in his Progress Report for the year 1891-92. But all the details bave been omitted. The inscription is incised on four sides of the pedestal of a Chaturmukha or four-fold image of a Tirtha kara, as Dr. Bühler used to call them (Plate VI). Each of the four faces of the pedestal bears a bas-relief. On the larger faces, the bas-relief consists of a wheel on an Indo-Persepolitan pilaster in the centre with three devotees, standing with folded hands, on each side. The bas-relief on the smaller faces is almost similar and consists of two devoteus only on each side of the pillar.
The inscription consists of two lines-more or less mutilated-on each face. The second line of the third face has broken away. Tho-epigraph records the dedication of some object the name of which is lost, in the 74th year, "preen mably of the Kushana era.
