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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1875.
and rendered in the photograph, throws & remarkable light on other memorials of the same nature, and also furnishes, if I mistake not, a contribution of some importance to the history of writing in Java.
When but recently, in the introduction to the Kawi Oorkonden, blz. vi., I mentioned, with some reserve, the close relation between the forms of writing in these records and that of some of the oldest known inscriptions of ancient India, I had particularly in view certain copper-plates, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (N. S. vol. I. pp. 247 ff.) by Prof. Dow son, belonging to the Chåluk ya dynasty of Kaira and dated in the year $. 394 (A.D. 472. 473). The striking and, in many respects, even perfect resemblance between the characters of that inscription and our Kawi-a re semblance first pointed out by our Sinologue Dr. G. Schlegel-induced me at the time to make a note of the alphabet. Thongh no other Indian form of writing really appeared on the whole so nearly related to the Kawi, yet I did not venture to attach much weight to it, inasmuch as some characters differed decidedly, and moreover I was a stranger to a number of Indian forms of writing, among which perhaps the nearest approach to the Kawi might occur.
So far as the Peninsula is concerned, my doubts are to a certain extent met by Dr. A. C. Burnell's recently published Elements of South Indian Palæography from the Fourth to the Seven- teenth Century A.D., containing a series of als phabets and specimens of writing arranged ac cording to chronological order from the oldest in the fourth century A.D.--the Vengt inscription, from the north-east of the peninsula, from & Cher & inscription of A.D. 466,+ from the south-east; West Chalukya, A.D. 608-9, from the north-west corner; and East Châlukya, A.D. 680, from the north-east, --quite or nearly corresponding to the first mentioned Chalukya inscription, and the later ones deviate from it further and further, as well as from the Kawi writing.
This last circumstance was to be expected, since we know that the character of our Kawi records ascends at least to the middle of the eighth century, and thus can scarcely show
• Not therefore, however, the most ancient known re. mains of Indian writing, which in the inscriptions of Asoka
deviations which in the original country first began to appear at a later date.
Granting, however, that the character brought over from India doubtless also in Java and elsewhere in the Archipelago developed in numberless secondary branches independent of the parent stem, we have no certainty that these branches all sprang from one original form of that stock; and we must at least allow it as probable that during some ages of the moro active intercourse with India, writing in Java continued to share in the influences of time and locality and other circumstances that influenced it in India. Consequently we find here and there in Java forms of writing more closely allied to one than another of the Indian alphabets; yet it does not by any means follow from this that in the one form of writing we have the true key to the origin of the other.
Still I think I may call it a notable discovery that, on inscribed stones in West Java-otherwise less rich in memorials of Hindu civilization than other parts of the island-the Vengi or Chera character, even in the peculiarities that most markedly distinguish it from the Kawi, is so clearly rendered as in the case of the Charoenten stone. By a comparison of that inscription with Burnell's first plate and the alphabet from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, I succeeded without difficulty in reading the greater part of it, though it contained characters that could not easily be explained by the Kawi. Inasmuch, however, as it appeared to be Sanskrit, of which my knowledge is limited, I applied to Prof. Kern, and with his aid was enabled to obtain a full explanation of the inscription with the exception of a couple of letters.
It consists of four lines forming together a pure Sanskrit śloka :
1. Vikrantasyávanipateh. 2. srimatah párnnvarmmanah. 3. ....ma-nagarendrasya.
4. Vishņor-iva pada-dvayam. The subject of the sentence is pada-dvayam, 1.e. pair of feet' or 'two footsteps': all the rest of the words with the exception of the ad. verb iva, like,' immediately preceding it, are genitives of the nouns vikránta, "striding,
stepping,' also "mighty' (bere perhaps to be ascend to about s.c. 250. t See the Merkara plates, Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 363.-ED.
