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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIX.
In addition to the Rajan Namijada we are introduced to a certain Sivarakshita, whose name seems to show that he was an Indian, who may have been employed as a Kshatrapa by the Sakas or Parthians, presumably in or near Shahdaur, or perhaps in Taxila.1
No. 31. -PESHAWAR MUSEUM INSCRIPTION OF THE YEAR 168.
BY N. G. MAJUMDAR, M.A.
In February 1924, while studying the antiquities kept in a store-room of the Peshawar Museum, I chanced upon an inscribed stone marked as " No. 20" and labelled "Presented by Sir Aurel Stein on 4th July 1916." But there was no record in the office of the Peshawar Museum to show whence the inscription came. On my return to Calcutta I wrote to Sir John Marshall, Director-General of Archæology in India, requesting him to kindly refer the matter to Sir Aurel Stein and ascertain whether the latter could throw any light on the point. As a result of the enquiry I came to know that the stone was presented to Sir Aurel Stein, in April 1906, by Sir Harold Deane, to whom it had been brought by some Pathan visitors, and that later on in 1916, when the former returned to Peshawar from his Third Central Asian Expedition, it was presented by him to the Peshawar Museum. I edit the record from. the excellent photographs kindly supplied to me by Khan Bahadur M. Wasi-ud-din.
The inscribed surface of the stone is about 11" by 44"; and the letters vary in size between 1" and". The inscription consists of 3 lines and is in a good state of preservation. Below it there is engraved a Svastika symbol.
The characters are Kharōshthi of the Kushana period. Specially to be noted are the cursively written pa with anusvāra and cha in paṁchadasa (1. 1), and ka in kue (1. 3). The first two might be compared with almost similar forms in Stein's Kharōshthi documents from Niya in Chinese Turkestan, and the third one with the form occurring in them as well as in the inscription on the Wardak vase. The letter sa shows no projection of the lower vertical line in two out of four instances (sam and divase 1. 1); but in the other two, there is just a trace of a projected lower vertical (mase, 1. 1, and -sahayana, 1. 2). The e-stroke does not touch the top of letters in Jetha and divase (1. 1). Similarly in the sign for 100 the upper slanting stroke is not joined to the lower portion of the letter. Some letters again are not fully incised, e.g., ga, the u-stroke attached to sh in 1. 2 and the letter e immediately before the word viharami in 1. 3.
The language is the typical north-western Prakrit as found generally in Kharoshṭhi inscriptions coming from the Peshawar region. The form of the word sashura (svasura) calls for special notice, being comparable to such forms as khakhorni (-Péasurāni) and khakhorna employed in the third century Niya documents. The latter forms are obviously later, because both the palatal sa-s have been lingualised, and the lingualisation has necessitated the orthographic substitution of kha. These were probably derived from Iranian vasura. Whether the same Iranian influence is responsible for the lingualisation of & in sashura in the present instance is doubtful.
1 The name Sivarakshita is found on a copper seal from Sirkap, where the shape of the Kharoshthi !etters is of the same kind as in our inscription; see Annual Report. A.S.I., 1914-15, p. 35 and Plate XXIV, 51. Kharögthi Inscriptions (ed. Rapson, Senart and Boyér), No. 58, reverse, 1. 1 and No. 248, 1. 4. Cf. F. W. Thomas, Jour. Boy. 48. Soc., 1921, p. 280.
See Bartholoma, Altiranisches Wörterbuch (1904). col. 1874.
