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NOVEMBER, 1886.]
VALABHI INSCRIPTIONS
335
a hut, where lived a Brahman and his wife. “O King, our father, why do you suspect Attracted by the man's strange behaviour,-for us? We are true sons. You have listened to he came out of the hut, looked up at the heavens the words of the queen, who wishes her own and then went in again exclaiming tráh tráh, - sons to have the throne and the great places I drew nearer to the place, and heard that in the kingdom, and so has maligned as. Your Majesty's star had been destroyed by We have never deceived you, O king, or wished another star, and that this meant that you harm." Your Majesty would die on a certain night. The king hung down his head in sorrow and From further conversation between the shame. In a few minutes he arose and dismissed Brihman and his wife, I learnt that the assembly, saying: “Ye have heard. I serpent would descend from the sky to kill will go myself and ascertain the truth of Your Majesty, and would enter the palace these things." by the door that opens into the court to Accompanied by his four eldest sons, the the east. There was no hope of safety, said king went and saw the pits that had been dag the Brâhman, unless one of Your Majesty's and the blood-stained place where the dead relations would dig pits in the palace-court, body of the snake had been thrown. He then whence the snake would enter, and fill them visited the Brahman's hut and closely interwith milk and water, and cover the pools thus rogated him concerning the eventful night. All made with flowers, so that the snake by was found to be perfectly correct. passing through them might lose its poison ;- There was great rejoicing in the city that and farther, the man who would do this thing, night, when the news was blazed abroad how must also slay the snake before it entered the near the four princes had been to death, and palace, and smear some of its warm blood over how they had been saved. It was soon Your Majesty's toes.
arranged for these princes to govern the land. “Therefore, O King, our father, I took upon The eldest son became king, and the cther myself to do this. I was present at the door sons were appointed wasirs. They lived on the east of the palace at the appointed together most amicably and prospered much. time. The pits were dug and everything The poor Brahman and his wife were wellarranged as the Brâhman had ordered. The provided for during the remainder of their serpent came and I duly slew it. And then, lives. The plotting, malicions queen was fearing to enter Your Majesty's private room divorced and exiled. The old king retired to & with my eyes open, I blindfolded myself. Hence jungle, that he might entirely devote himself the mistake I made of putting the blood on to meditation and prayer. In this jungle he the queen's toes instead of on Your Majesty's. obtained a very great reputation for sanctity, No rákshasa entered Your Majesty's room and at length died at a very great old age."
VALABHI INSCRIPTIONS, NO. XVIII. BY G. BUHLER, PA.D., LL.D., C.I.E.; VIENNA.
(Continued from Vol. XI. p. 809.) A NEW GRANT OF DHARASENA IV. Their measurements appear to be about 121 The subjoined transcript of a new grant of inches by 107. The first plate contains 28 lines Dharasena IV. of Valabhi, has been made and the second 29, the two last being someaccording to a reversed photozincograph which what shortened in order to make room for the I owe to the kindness of Dr. J. Burgess. royal signature,-Feat . The characters
The original plates, which, as I learn from Dr. agree most closely with those of the inscriptions Burgess, were found last year in the Kheda of Dharasêna IV. published in this Jourual, Vol. (Kaira) Collectorate, seem to be in good I. p. 14, and Vol. VII. p. 73. The technical preservation, as only a few letters of the second execution of the inscription is good. There are page of the photozincograph are illegible. few clerical mistakes, and few misshapen letters.
> Cf. variant of this story, Folktales of Bengal," Strike The two horizontal strokes which the facsimile shows bat hoor," pp. 147-159. - [There can be littlo doubt that after , do not represont the visarga, but indicate the the Sindibla oyolo of oriental folktales is responsible end of a Mahduitkya just like the more common vertical for the form that this story is made to tako.-ED.]
strokes.
