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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII.
Dr. Leitner to take away anything he might have left at Hoti Mardan. Dr. Leitner, after personal inspection, got the stone carried down to Lahore by bullock-cart, and there got the inscription both lithographed and photographed. The discovery of the stone therefore belongs to Dr. Bellew, that of the inscription to Dr. Leitner."
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A rubbing of the inscription was forwarded by Dr. Leitner to Professor Dowson, who gave a notice of it in Trübner's Record of June 1871. A second notice was published by Cunningham in the same Record, June 1873,1 and a fuller account, with an excellent plate by Dowson, who read the date portion and, in a second note,3 gave a new reproduction of the same. Then follow editions by Cunningham, Senart and Boyer. I now edit the epigraph from excellent estampages which I owe to the kindness of Professor Vogel, who had them prepared for me when he was Superintendent of the Punjab Circle of the Archeological Survey.
The inscription consists of six lines, and the average height of the letters is 14". In the first line there is an apparent gap after the seventh letter, but nothing has been omitted, the intervening space having been purposely left without any writing on account of the roughness of the stone. Similarly there is a vacant space in the middle of 1. 5.
Cunningham remarks that "as the stone has been used for many years, perhaps for centuries, for the grinding of spices, all the middle part of the inscription has suffered and become indistinct, and some portions have been obliterated altogether." In such circumstances it is intelligible that the reading and interpretation is in some places beset with considerable difficulties.
The alphabet is Kharoshṭht of the Saka variety. The letter ya has the relatively broad angle which we also find in the Paja inscription of Sam 111, and the Mount Banj inscription of Sam 102. The continuation of the vertical of sa up towards the upper curvature, which is seen in both those records, is apparently not met with. We find the same occasional lengthening of the right top of ma as in Mount Banj. Ba has the older curvilinear and not the later angular shape. The curvature of the upper end of da towards the right is very insignificant. There is no dental na, and the cerebral na has the rounded top which we find in the Mount Banj and Kaldarra epigraphs and also in the Patika plate. The shape of individual letters is not, however, quite consistent, and more especially the letter ya has several somewhat different forms, so that it is not quite certain whether it should not, in puyae 11. 5 and 6, be read as puas. Note also the curious flourish after the last letter of the inscription, which is certainly e. It is perhaps due to damage to the stone during the years when it was used for grinding spices.
With regard to individual letters we may note the akshara following after the break in 1. 1, which I follow Professor Franke? and M. Boyer in transliterating f. M. Senarts transcribed it as bh and Professor Lüders as vh. I use f because this writing has the advantage of greater simplicity, and because the Latin form of the name in which the letter occurs has familiarized us with the f. But it is not my intention to convey the impression that the actual sound was necessarily the voiceless spirant f. Gudufara, the name in question, is not Indian but Persian, derived from an old Vindafarna "the winner of glory". The last part of the compound is derived from the Aryan base svar, and sr is usually represented by uv in Ancient
1 Reprinted Ind. Ant., Vol. II, 1873, p. 242.
2 J. R. 4. 8., New Series, Vol. VII, 1875, pp. 376 ff., with plate.
Ibid., Vol. IX, 1877, pp. 144 ff.
Archaeological Survey of India, Vol. V, 1875, pp. 58 ff., with plate XVI, No. 3.
Journ. Asiat., VIII, xv, 1890, pp. 114 ff., with plate.
Ibid., X, iii, 1904, pp. 457 ft.
1 Pali und Sanskrit. Strassburg, 1902, p. 111. Journ. Asiat., IX, xii, 1893, p. 206.
J. R. 4. S., 1909, pp. 655 ft.
