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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XIX
xahara, i.e., sahayara, sahachara, companion. The well is accordingly the gift of the companions of the ferry-village, i.e., of the boatman-association at the Sala crossing.
We shall now see what the imitator has made out of this. No has become o, and kra and me would hardly be intelligible without the guidance of the original. Of kuro khadao only one akshara remains. It looks like o. Then we can, with some modifications, recognize dronivadrana sa. Then follow three signs which have nothing to correspond to them in the original. The first one is repeated in l. 4, below the final sa of 1. 3, and the last one looks like an attempt at reproducing the top of the picture shown in the Shakardarra inscription.
L. 4. It will be seen that the first aksharas of the Shakardarra record are a little misshaped, the head of ha having become closed, the top of the na running into the preceding ra and being, besides, continued in a short stroke to the left, the latter being evidently due to peeling off. It also seems necessary to read the final na as a dental, the same sign as in nokrame, though we should certainly expect na, as usually between vowels in this record. Thus the last word is clearly danamukho.
The writer of the Rawal record has drawn the ha with a hook protruding from the upper part of the vertical; the ra has become something looking like da, and the na has been read with the forward protrusion and looks like va.
The ensuing dana is well imitated, but the remainder of the inscription has turned out very badly. The two first aksharas may be copied from mukho, with a reversion of the mu, or they may be an attempt at supplying the word luvo omitted in l. 3. Then follows the same sign which we found after the final sa of l. 3, and, finally, three signs which may represent an attempt at reproducing parts of the picture of the original. It is not, however, of any use to speculate on their meaning.
In order to illustrate how the copyist went to work I shall give a transliteration of the Shakardarra record, adding, (in italics), the corresponding words or letters of the Rawal text whero they have come out with something like the original
TEXT. L1 warh 20 20 Prothavadasa masasa divas[ami]
sam 20 20 .. . vadasa masasa L.2 višami di 20 atra divasakāle Salla). : sa 20 atra divasakāle L. 3 nokramekuvo khadao dronivadraņa BaOkrame
0 dropivadrapa sa . L 4 [ha]ra[na) danamukho hadava
dana . . . . .
TRANSLATION. Anno 40, on the twonttoth day, d. 20, of the month Praushthapada, at this time and day, at the Bala-ferry, this well was dug as the gift of the ferry-village associates.
diva
The Rawal inscription has not, it will be seen, any value as an independent record. It is Devertheless of interest as throwing light on the way in which such inscriptions were looked on.
