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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. XXII.
No. 2.—SHELL CHARACTER ROCK INSCRIPTION AT CI-ARUTON (JAVA).
BY K. P. JAYASWAL, M.A., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, PATNA. A cureive and florid writing has been found in various places in India. I have seen it in the rock-cut cave-house at Khandgiri in the so-called Lalāta Kesari Gumphā; at the door of the Gupta or pre-Gupta temple standing at Tigawan; at Rājgir; at Patna, etc.; and one text repeated several times at Rāmţek (Nagpur) has been brought to light by Dr. Turner 1. Uptil now it has been called "Shell characters" or Sankha writing owing to the cursive forms of letters which resemble a conch-shell.
Lately I had to study the "box-headed ” writing of the Javanese inscriptions which have been edited by Dr. Vogel under the title The Earliest Sanskrit Inscriptions of Java in Publicaties van den Ouadheidkundigen Dienst in Nederlandisch-Indie, Deel I (Weltevreden, 1925). A Shell inscription is engraved at Ci-Arutön below the foot-prints of King Pūrņavarman. The toes of the king are represented to have had lotus-marks, the auspicious lakshana (marks), which have been taken by several Dutch scholars to be a representation of "spiders". The whole purpose of the inscription is to emphasise this sāmvudrika lakshana.
The main inscription is in box-headed letters of the Vākāțaka type, which has been accurately read by Dr. Vogel (p. 22) as follows :
i Vikkråntasy-āvanipatēḥ 2 Srimataḥ Pūrņnavarmaṇaḥ 3 Tärūma-nagar-ēndrasya
4. Vishnor-iva pada-dvayam.
Plate 28 of Dr. Vogel's book which is reproduced here gives the facsimile of the foot-prints and the inscriptions in shell and box-headed letters.
It is evident that the two inscriptions are contemporary with the foot-prints (pāduka). It was to record the description of the foot-marks that the inscriptions were engraved. The shell writing was drawn first and then the "box-headed " one. This is apparent from the position of the two inscriptions. The loop of the first letter of the shell line caused a little slanting of the box-headed lines. The shell line is just below the pādu kā and occupies & more prominent position.
On the evening of the 14th April (1933) I placed the plate before my learned friend Dr. Hirananda Sastri with my view that here was a bi-scriptory writing, and that it was possible to solve the shell record with the help of the box-headed record which gives the purpose of the inscription. Dr. Hirananda Sastris agreed with that view. I now place my reading before scholars.
The line opens with Sri, placed just between the two large toes, and reads ŚRI PURNNAVARMAŅAH. It may be noticed chat three ns are the same in shape.
The writing is very likely the Paushkarasādiya, one of the three main lips of Northern India mentioned in Buddhist books (Bühler, Indische Palæographie, p. 2). The shell writing
"J. B. O. R. 8., 1933, Dec. issue.
Cunningham finding it mostly on Gupta monuments thought that the writing arose in Gupta times (R., VIII, p. 129). But this is disproved by. Silahari cave inscriptions (of Rewah) where it is associated with contemporary writing of C. 100 A. D.-A. 8. R., 1927-28, p. 138. I have examined the latter, and one of them seems to give the same donor's name as the Brahmf lines.
Mr. Jayaswal'n ronding seems to be plausible, but till we have examined all the known Inscriptions in this curious script we should treat it as a working hypothesis-H.8.]
