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No. 28.1
SO-CALLED TAKAT-I-BAHI INSCRIPTION OF THE YEAR 103.
269
read ya by M. Boyer, has a distinct vertical, rising from the left hand termination, and looks like ta. The following akshara cannot, I think, be sa, but seems to be dhi, though it is different from the dha in shadhadana. With every reserve I would therefore read sa putadhi. But then the following akshara cannot be anything else than ta, though it looks more like a ra. The upper stroke is sloping upwards and not horizontal as in va. Moreover, there are traces of an upward stroke at the left termination of the letter, which has become somewhat indistinct AB A consequence of the following letter having been engraved across it. That last akshara is quite misshaped, and it seems necessary to infer that it has not been engraved before the eusaing akshara. It seems as if it had originally been overlooked and was subsequently added, after the omission had been detected. There was not then sufficient space for the proper shape of the akshara, and its apper part was engraved above the other letters and across the preceding ta. We have a similar letter at the very end of the Zeda inscription, where the last word is no doubt Sanghamitrarajasa. I therefore read the akshara as sa and the wbole compound as saputadhita ea.
The remaining portion of 1. 4 does not present any difficulty, and both M. Senart and M. Boyer agree in reading Miraboyanasa. I have no hesitation in'accepting this reading, only substitating na for their na. Mira is, as stated by M. Boyer, the Iranian Mithra, and it is of interest to note that tr has become r as in Ancient Khotani.
The first three aksharas of 1.5 were read ejhshuna by M. Boyer, while M. Senart only read the first and third letters. The second akshara is certainly a compound, and the upper part is clearly jh. The curved line across the lower vertical is the usual sign of a r preceding the consonant, and such is evidently its significance in our inscription as well. A compound jhsh is in itself very unlikely and has never been met with in any Kharoshthi record, while rjh also occurs in the Zeda inscription. The loop below the akshara looks like an u-mătrā and it would be natural to read erjhuna. If we bear in mind, however, that the usual way of denoting a r forming the first part of a compound in later Kharðshthi inscriptions is to add a loop at the bottom, it is perhaps possible to consider our compound as an intermediate form and to read erjhana and, finally, the reading erjhāna might also be possible. Cf. my remarks to the word shadhadana, 1. 4. At all events, there cannot be any doubt that we have to do with an un-Indian word.
The letter jh is seldom used in Indian inscriptions. Where it occurs in Kharðshthi records, it seems to represent a voiced z, just as is the case in the Kharoshthi documents from Eastern Turkistan, where s is commonly softened between vowels so that we find dajha for dása, divajha for divasa. The letter is found in the Zeda inscription, where marjhaka, 1. 2, is evidently identical with Khotani malysa kia; in the Mänikiāla inscription, where we must read Kartiyasa majhé divasē 20, with the same softening of s between vowels as in the Turkistan documents, and in the Ara inscription, where Vajheshka corresponds to Brahmi Vási shka. This name is evidently derived from the Iranian base vāza, strength, vigour. Similarly jh is used for 2 in the coin-legends of Zoilos.
The sound , had long ago become obsolete in Indian languages, and considerable difficulty Was experienced when it had to be expressed in foreign words. The form Vāsishka shows that it was occasionally written as s, and later on j became the representative of 2, as, c.g., in the coin-legends of Zeionises. If Kusuluka, which occurs in the Tazila copper-plate of Patika and on the Mathuri Lion capital, is the same word as kujula in the name of the first Kushåpa ruler, we here have s and j in the same word as different attempts at rendering the voiced ..
1 I read the word so. 8.B.A.W., 1916, p. 801. ! Cf. my remarks, Festschrift Hirt, p. 280.
