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192
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
man should kill the sacred sheep, and maintaining the opposite doctrine that a Potter is the eligible party for performing the sacrifice. The Venerable Srimat Sankaracharya, S. A., A., S., N. S., A., S. A., S. M. S. S., the Chief Pontiff, held a Pandit Court at Kumbakonam, and carefully analysed and examined the work written by Venkanna Sastri, and declared it to be a perfect success, and has upheld the doctrine that a Potter is eligible for performing the sacrifice; and in token of his approval granted a certificate named Siddhânta Śrimukam to Venkanna Sastri on the 17th March 1871. The Dharma Sabha at Tanjor received Venkanna Sastri with great regard and veneration, and honoured the Jay patrika issued by Srimat Sankaracharya by carrying it in procession along the main streets of the Tanjor Fort, in great pomp with all honours, and read the work Vipra Samitra Khandanam, written by Venkanna Śâstri, with great rejoicings, on the 24th March 1871.'"
The earnest gravity of this notification, as well as the events it records, testify to the importance the native community attached to the issue; and it is remarkable to find a court of Pandits and Branmans upholding a popular privilege and deciding against their own order.†
The accompanying illustration is from a sketch by Capt. J. S. F. Mackenzie, who found the stone which it represents in the jungles 5 miles from Narsipur, and 110 from Bangalur. When be found it, he says "the stone, or rather rock, just cropped out of the ground," and he got some stone-masons to cut off the inscribed portion; "unfortunately they partially damaged the original," as he 'could not superintend the cutting, and his instructions were disobeyed.' He adds: "The letters or lines are very indistinct. I have tried to take impressions, but failed. It is only by getting a particular light on the stone you can see distinctly the lines. The figures at the end of lines for I have taken them from
[JULY, 1874.
VI. Analogies.
Similarities of thought and expression in widely-separated literatures and languages are not unfrequently curious and interesting. A couplet given in Ind. Ant., vol. II. p. 341, runs thus:--
The mould in which Maru was formed is such that none other in the whole world has been framed in it.
"Either that mould has been broken, or the artificer thereof hath forgotten how to so fashion another."
THE NARSIPUR
We may be sure Byron had never heard of this when he ended his Monody on the Death of R. B. Sheridan with the lines "Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan."
The expression "None but himself can be his parallel" has been censured as an illogical conceit; but Mr. Brown has pointed out in the old Telugu Sumati Satakam, "He is comparable to himself alone," and the Ramayana uses the idea considerably exaggerated:
"The Heavens can only be likened unto the Heavens,
And to Rama and Râvana can Râma and Ravana only be compared."
STONE.
left to right-are Kanarese numerals turned upside down. There is no building near where this rock was. Close by on two different boulders, similar, but only a few, characters were found."
"I see similar scratchings on a rock close to a temple here at Bangalur, and have an idea that the rock at Belgola is also covered with similar markings. The story with regard to those at Belgola is that the masons used them as a tally. I doubt this. The present copy is far too regular to be taken for waddârs' (stone-masons') accounts."
Possibly some of our readers may be able to give information that may help towards understanding the intent of these symbols.
I confess being baffled by the letters appended to the names of this and the preceding reverend personage; perhaps they are of private interpretation, like the S. S. which the old Puritan Praise-God Barebones wrote after his name, and which none could tell the meaning of, till he explained they denoted 'Sinner Saved.'
All the Mahfrs of four télulas in Poona sent representatives to a diet held this year at Junnar to settle a point of precedence among themselves.-ED.
