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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Allahâbâd and Benares Districts. In Eastern India, he repeatedly visited Bihar, both north and south of the Ganges, a part of Bengal Proper and the caves of Orissa. In the North he went as far as Shahbâzgarhî in the Yusafzai District, and as far as Nêpâl at the other extremity of the Himalayan range. On these journeys, which were not made continuously, but with intervals of rest at Bombay, he took copies, mostly ink-impressions and paper rubbings, of all the more important known inscriptions, and .of numerous unknown ones which he discovered. He also collected hundreds of coins and MSS., and gathered much curious and important information regarding the ancient monuments, and the castes and religious sects of the districts through which he travelled, as well as many historical traditions. With respect to the inscriptions and coins, he by no means confined himself to the mechanical work of collecting and taking copies. He made transcripts and translations into Gujarati,arranging them in their proper order and drawing up tables of the various alphabets. In 1875 and 1876 I saw in his library a number of large carefully indexed volumes which contained the results of his work performed at home and on his journeys. During this period he also learned a little English, just sufficient to read the scientific works on India and Indian matters, and studied Prakrit with a Jaina Gorji, who for some time was in the employ of Dr. Bhân Dâjî.
These extensive and varied researches completed his education as an epigraphist; and made him fit for his career as an independent scholar, which soon after he was forced to begin.
Just about the time of his return from Nêpêl, his connexion with Dr. Bhân Dâjî was brought to an end by the death of that gentleman, which occurred on the 29th May, 1874. The circumstances of the family were not such as to permit their employing Pandit Bhagvanlal any longer, or their thinking of a publication of the accumulated materials. But they allowed him to keep the facsimiles and transcripts which he had prepared, and thus gave him a chance of accomplishing what his master had failed to carry out. Though the revival of epigraphic studies had then begun in Western India, and though Dr. Burgess would have gladly welcomed a contributor of Pandit Bhagvanlal's attainments, the seclusion in which he had been kept from all contact with European Sanskritists, his precarious worldly position, and his inability to express himself in English, prevented him from coming forward at once. It was fully two years later that his first article was sent by me to the Indian Antiquary, and others were laid by Dr, O. Codrington before
[OCTOBER, 1888.
the Bombay Br. R. A. S. Pandit Bhagvânlâl first visited me in the spring of 1875, while I was temporarily staying in Bombay for some official business. He told me, among other matters, that he had made some discoveries on the value and the origin of what then used to be called the cave-numerals. My journey to Kasmir prevented my paying at once serious attention to this affair. But when, after my return, he came again, showed me the drawing of his plate, and explained his theory, I felt such an admiration for his ingenious and important discoveries that I offered to put his notes into shape and to get the article published. We prepared it together, and Dr. Burgess printed it in the February number of the Indian Antiquary for 1877. In the meantime, the Pandit had been introduced to Dr. O. Codrington, then Honorary Secretary of the Bombay Br. R. A. Soc., who lent him his assistance for the preparation of four short papers on coins, inscriptions and numeral signs (Jour. Bo. Br. R. 4. S. Vol. XII. p. 404). Shortly after the appearance of his first publications, Pandit Bhagvânlal was elected, in April 1877, an honorary member of the Bombay Asiatic Society on the motion of the late Mr. J. Gibbs; the proposal being seconded by myself and Dr. Codrington. This first recognition of his merits greatly encouraged him, and was of great importance for his career, as it gave him the free use of the Asiatic Society's Library. He amply repaid the obligation under which the Society had laid him, by many excellent contributions to its Journal, and he fully justified the honour shown to him by his incessant literary activity, which continued uninterruptedly almost to the hour of his death. The total number of his published articles is twenty-eight, besides which he has furnished large contributions to some volumes of the Bombay Gazetteer and smaller ones to Sir A. Cunningham's Archæological Reports,
They contain many discoveries which will be of permanent value, and will cause his name to be remembered as that of one of the most successful students of Indian epigraphy and history.
In palæography, he finally settled the values of the signs of the ancient numerical system. It is an undeniable fact that since the appearance of his plates in the Indian Antiquary and in the Jour. Bo. Br. R. A. S., the vacillations in the readings of the dates, expressed by. "cave-numerals," have disappeared, and that now differences on such points are rare among competent epigraphists. His theory that the "cave numerals" are letternumerals has been disputed, but makes way more and more. This much seems now indisputable, that, whatever the origin of these signs may be,
