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No. 46.] A NOTE ON THE BAJAUR CASKET OF THE REIGN OF MENANDER.
319
Unfortunately, however, the portion of the casket that contained the date, is broken and lost. The second date is Year 5; but there is no reference to the reign of any king. Mr. Majumdar, chiefly on palæographic grounds, divided the inscribed passages of the record into two groups and pointed out that the two dates referred to above belong to the two different groups. It was also sug. gested by him that “the difference in age between the two sets of inscriptions was probably a little more than fifty years". He assigned the first date referring to the reign of Menander to the second century B. C. but the second date, i.e., Year 5 of an unspecified reign, to the first century B. C. I am, however, inclined to believe that both the dates belong to Menander's reign and that the first date is a year falling between the accession and the fifth regnal year of the king.
According to Mr. Majumdar, the first group of the inscribed passages consisting of sections A, A-1, A-2 and B has letters formed by bold and deeply incised strokes, while in the second group containing sections C, D and E, the writing is shallow and the letters are smaller in size. Group I again has the cerebral » with a rounded head; but in group II, it shows an acute angle in its head. Further, in the former group, dental n has a long sweep in the top curve, while in the latter it has taken the angular or hook-like appearance. The dental s is of the closed type in group I; but in group II, it is open-mouthed, that is to say, it shows a gap at the upper left side of the crowning loop. Mainly on these grounds, the two groups have been placed by Mr. Majumdar more than half a century apart from each other. His theory was also influenced by the use of the word sakamuni in group I and of sakimuni in group II, and also by the passage sa sariatri kaladre occurring in the latter group. Mr. Majumdar seems to have further considered the fact that Menander's reign is usually assigned by numismatists to the second century B. C., while Vijayamitra's coins are said to bear the legend in Brähmi characters of the first century B. C. Let us examine these points one by one.
Deeply incised strokes are a peculiarity only of section A. The size of letters in E is at least as big as that of the letters of any section of group I. The size of letters, moreover, is of little importance when passages of a particular record are incised in different sections. The head of the cerebral » in prana-sameda of A-2 (as also in prana-sameda of A) is angular and not round. In C, line 1, Mr. Majumdar reads vijayamitra........; but there is a with the lower part of two following letters quite clear after that passage. It is interesting to note that the head of this n, though a little damaged, appears to be the only instance of the round-headed cerebral n in the whole inscription. It may be noticed in this connection that the head of a is usually round; but sometimes it is angular, and sometimes a is hardly distinguishable from v. As regards the dental n, we have three types slightly differing from one another. N in takemunisa of A-2 (which is practically of the same type as n in minedrasa of A) shows a little less curved neck than the n-s of all the sections excepting E. In E, n has an angle about the middle of the upper curve. Closed dental s is peculiar to A ; but the mouth of sin prana-sameda of A-2 is only halfclosed (=half open). It is usually half closed in D; but in a few cases the open-mouthed type is also noticed. In vesrakhrasa masasa divasa, only the third s is fully open-mouthed. But the most interesting point is that none of the two s-signs in B (which belongs to group I according
* Op. cit., p. 2.
Compare, e.g., the Bhattiprolu Casket Inscriptions (above, Vol. II, ff. 323 ff. and platos) and the Mathara Lion Capital Inscriptions (C. I. I., Vol. II, part i. pp. 30 ff. and plates). Round-headed n cannot be an indication of early dato. It is found in the inscriptions of th. Saytho-
K i ns Build in the Central Asian documents. . OF. bhudrao in section D, line 1.
C. apomua in section D), line 2
