Indian Antiquary Vol 17

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 37

JANUARY, 1883.)
BOOK NOTICES.
31
remains for me to remark that, according to one of the three Tamil inscriptions at the so-called Shore Temple at Mamallapuram, this temple
seems to have been founded by a Pallava king Kshatriyasinha, about whose age nothing is known.
E. HULTZSCH.
BOOK NOTICES. INSCRIPTIONS SANSKRITES DU CAMBODGE; Par M. A. 1 time when manuscript history begins. How BARTH. Extrait des Notices et Extraits des Mann
happy would the Indian epigraphiste be, if they scrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, tome xxvii. lre partie. 180 pp. in 4to. Paris, Imprimerio Nation- had the same good luck with any part of their ale, 1885. Atlas, dix-sept planches in folio.
vast domain! It was decided that those valuable The first fac-similes of inscriptions from monuments should be published under the Cambodia were published in 1873, by Francis
auspices of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Garnier, the well-known traveller, in his Voyage Lettres, and thrown into scientific circulation as d'exploration en Indo-Chine (Paris, 1873). Un. soon as possible. The materials sent by Captain fortunately they escaped the notice of Indian Aymonier, were divided between the three memscholars. Other fac-similes, however, published bers of the Committee. M. Barth has been the in Paris, in 1879 and 1880, by Dr. Harmand, in first to fulfil his task; and he has done it in the the Annales de l'Extrême Orient, attracted the sound and thorough way which was to be expected attention of Dr. Kern in Leiden, who deciphered from so accomplished a scholar. them with the help of the Indian and Javanese M. Barth has presented us with the text, transalphabets, recognised that the language of several lation, and commentary of nineteen inscriptions. of the inscriptions was Sanskrit, and gave an The text is given in Roman transcription; but interpretation of them. And, just about the same the accompanying book of Plates gives magnifitime, Lieutenant (now Captain) Aymonier, cent photogravures of the squeezes, after the French Resident in Cambodia, being well acquain- procédé Dujardin; so that the student has the ted with the modern writing and language of that monument itself in his hands. These inscripcountry, was able to decipher similar inscriptions, tions belong to the oldest epigraphy of Cambodia with the help of the Khmôr alphabet, and to at present known; though further discoveries, interpret some of them, written in the vernacular which may always be looked for, as M. Aymonier dialect (Excursions et Reconnaisances, fascicule is still in the field, may bring to light materials IV. 1880). He also extracted from the inscriptions older still. in the vernacular, chronological data for the age The time has not yet come to draw any general of the bilingual ones. Captain Aymonier profited conclusions from the documents thus published. by his stay at Phnom Penh, to collect inscriptions As M. Barth Observes, -"Comme il arrive in the capital, and in Central Cambodia; and in souvent en pareille matière, la préface ne pourra 1882 he sent to the Société Asiatique de Paris venir ici qu'à la fin du livre. C'est seulement more than twenty inscriptions, making a total of lorsque la série entière des documents accessibles more than 1,500 stanzas, which were examined by aura été publiée, que l'un de nous pourra essayer & Committee, appointed by the Society, and d'en retracer l'ensemble; de résumer l'histoire, composed of MM. Barth, Bergaigne, and Senart. hier inconnue, qu'ils nous révèlent; d'en coordonThe report of the Committee was drawn up by ner les données parfois si instructives par le jour M. Bergaigne (Journal Asiatique, 1882, II. 139- qu'elles jettent sur le développement social, reli930). With the materials in his hands, M. gieux et littéraire, non-seulement de ces contrées Bergaigne was enabled to make out a list of lointaines, mais anssi de l'Inde propre : d'appréthe kings of Cambodia, from the end of the sixth cier enfin l'étendue et la force de pénétration de century to the beginning of the twelfth. The cette vieille culture hind
cette vieille culture hindoue que, naguère encore, French Institute, alive to the historical, epigra- on soupçonnait à peine, et qui, pourtant, était phical, and philological interest of those monu- ancienne déjà à l'époque de nos premières in. ments, applied to the French Government, inscriptions, puisan'on nent en enivra la te
scriptions, puisqu'on peut en suivre la trace jusque order that Captain Aymonier should be entrusted chez Ptolemée." with an official mission to search for all remains But a few special points in them may be noticed. of Cambodian epigraphy; and in 1883 Captain The Indian inscriptions in Cambodia are as full Aymonier sent to Paris 304 squeezes, of which of rhetoric, and canarallas daunia . Aiman 143 bear Sansksit inscriptions, many of them precise information, as those in India proper. containing more than one hundred stanzas. They are most of them written to commemorate Thoge documents extend over six cemturies and the erection of a temple, or of a linga or some allow us to follow the series of the Carabodian religious donation, and expatiate on the greatness kings, without any interruption, nearly to the of Siva, or on the virtues of the king or his