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DECEMBER, 1875.]
SACRED FOOTPRINTS IN JAVA.
357
understood in a double sense, and specially in is peculiar to the Vengi character." So, though allusion to Vishņa's trivikrama--the 'three without the crooked line, it is nearly represented strides' with which he is supposed to have over- in his first plate, 4th century A.D., expressing the stepped the world), avunipati, 'lord of the soil, syllable lam; in the following, A.D. 608, its place prince'; Sriman, 'illustrious"; Pánnavar nmd, a is supplied by a small circle between other personal name ; . ... ma-nagarendra, 'prince letters but near the top of the line; while later of the city or kingdom of ....ma;' and Vish. (A.D. 689) it is written above the proceding letter pu, the god. And the whole may be translated and passes into the well-known form of anusvára thus :
or bindu, though at first it is interchanged with "The two footstepsof the striding (or mighty ?) the old form. Prince, the illustrious Parnnavarmmâ, lcrd If the two star-like figures before the footof......ma-nagara, are like (those) of Vishnu." | prints represent spiders, as the catalogue states With respect to the personal name, Prof. Kern 1 --and they have really something of that appearpoints ont that in St. Julien's Mémoires sur ance--it may be impated, as Prof. Kern thinks, les contréns occidentales, par Hiouen Thsang, t. I. to the Jaina doctrine, which prescribes at every p. 463, a Buddhist king of Magadha is men- step to be careful not to trample upon any living tioned, of the same name, as a protector and creature. cultivato: of the Bo-tree, which the heretics Above he figure are some strokes, as of (non-Buddhists, had wished to extirpate. Whe- writing, that still wait explication. ther the same person is here intended, or Thus, without being able accurately to deterperhaps another in Java called after him, is mine the time whence this memorial dates, we difficult to determine, so long as the name of may regard it with some grounds of certainty as the place is unknown. "From the comparison one of the oldest indications of Hinduism hitherwith Vishnu," remarks Prof. Kern, "the Brah- to known in Java; a trace that derives a higher manical character of the inscription does not interest from its surroundings,-on a living follow, at least with certainty: the whole Hindu almost shapeless mass of rock in the middle of Pantheon is fully acknowledged by the Buddha stream, scarcely above the surface of the ists, and even enlarged and enriched particularly water, where it has lain for at least ten centnries with evil spirits and devils."
unprotected and undisturbed, without apparentAs to the name, it is certain that it consistedly having sustained any injury to the sharpness of three syllables of which the last is ma; the of the lines with which it is carved. middle syllable appears to be ru or rú-probably ! Under Nos. 11 and 12 of the catalogne follow the latter, at least if ma is to be considered as two stones of the same sort,--the first at Jamboe short, seeing the metre requires a long syllable. inscribed with two footprints* and already deThe first, which as to metre may be either long scribed by Rigg and Frederich in the Tijd. or short, we are inclined conjecturally to read schrift voor Ind. Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, as ná or td--though it appears to differ rather III. 183 ff. It has two lines of writing, each 5 widely from both in this character, we cannot feet 2 inches long, of the same sort, and appasuggest a better.
rently not less distinct and well preserved than The last character deserves special no- that on No. 10, but in the photographic copy tice, viz. m, which is thus equivalent to ma, too much foreshortened to be equally easily and if necessary it may be so understood by read. No. 12 is a stone at Kebon Kopi (Coffeethe stroke running down on the right side garden) on the way from Champea to Paseran of the letter as standing in place of the usual Moewara, and shows the impresses of two form of the viráma or paten in Kawi: but elephant's-feet with a line of inscription bethe unusual form and position of the letter tween them, apparently of the same kind, but readily suggest the peculiarity mentioned by not so well preserved or copied, and not deBurnell (page 15) :-“Final m is represented by ciphered as yet....... a small m-less than the other letters-which Professor Kern has been able in a great
# These impressions are much feebler than those of No. 10: is the photograph there is little more distinguish. able than the toes near the top of the triangular stone,
beyond which is a deep gap between the two, which, accord. ing to Rigg, were originally united, but probably torn sunder by fire.
