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No. 35.) KOSAM INSCRIPTION OF BHADRAMAGHA'S REIGN : THE YEAR 81.
253
TEXT. Mokharēr=Hasti-puttrasya Dhanuttrt'tasya dhimataḥ [1] Aptö[1]yy[ā]mna[b] kratoh yūpaḥ sahasrð gava-dakshiņā. [1]
TRANSLATION. This is the yüpa of the Aptöryāma sacrifice performed by the wise Dhanuttrāta, son of Hastin, of the Maukhari clan; an honorarium of a thousand cows (was given on the occasion).
No. 35.-KOSAM INSCRIPTION OF BHADRAMAGHA'S REIGN : THE YEAR 81.
BY KRISHNA DEVA, M.A. This inscription which is engraved on a large slab of sand-stone, was discovered early in December 1937 in the course of an exploration of the ancient site of Kosam and its neighbourhood in the district of Allabābād by Mr. N. G. Majumdar, Superintendent, Archæological Section, Indian Museum, Calcutta. It was dug out, 2 ft. below surface, from the western bank of an old dried up nālā, once draining into the Jumna, near the village Nauhāi, nearly 11 miles north-west of the well-known Kosam Pillar. I am grateful to Mr. Majumdar for kindly supplying me with an estampage of the inscription and providing me with facilities for editing it.
The epigraph is in an excellent state of preservation. The writing, which is neatly incised in two lines, covers a space of 2' 8" X 4" and is engraved breadthwise at one end of the huge rectangular slab, measuring 7' in length, 2' 9" in width and 6" in thickness. The size of the letters varies in length from 1' to 2".
The characters of the inscription belong to the Brahmi alphabet of the later Kushäņa period. The majority of the letters used are Kushāna while a few like m and h show advanced forms which are rare in the Kushāņa documents but are of common occurrence in the Gupta records. The inscription, however, bears a close resemblance to the Mathurā pedestal inscription of the year 14 of Kanishka with which it also agrees in the use of m, h and s (e.g. maharajasya, 1. 1) of the so. called eastern variety of the Gupta alphabet. The signs used for representing the medial vowelsa and 2 by horizontal side strokes (e.g. asana-patā, 1.2; savatsarë, 1. 1), i by a curve to left on top of the consonant (e.g. divasë, 1. 1), i by a U-shaped sign at the top of the letter (e.g. dvitiya, 1. 1) and si by a line, slanting from the lower right extremity of the consonant towards left (e.g. grishma, 1. 1)-as well as the forms of the letters n and » with curved base-lines (e.g. asana-pattā and frēniya, 1.2), gand & with rounded tops (e.g.grishma-pakshe, 1. 1; frēniya, l. 2), gh, j, p and v with flat angular forms (e.g. Bhadramaghasya, maharajasya, pakshe and savatsarē, 1. 1) and the initial à with the bar denoting its length attached lower down (e.g. āsana-pattā, l. 2)—are typical of the Kushāna writing. The forms of g, t, bh and & show the pre-Gupta type inasmuch as in each case their verticals are of the same length. Similarly noteworthy is the letter sh with unlooped form and archaic round base. Incidentally we may also notice some peculiarities which are evidently due to the engraver's carelesgness; the middle horizontal bar of the first sa in savatsarë (1. 1) is missing
From an ink impression. * Read Hasti. • Owing to the carelessness of the mason, the three letters in dhanuttra have been all joined thgather.
Read lör-yūpah. • Read sahasra-gava-dakshinas . Above, Vol. XIX, pp. 96 ff.
