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DECEMBER, 1897.]
MISCELLANEA.
335
names are found on the Taxila copper-plate of Samvat 78 of the great king Môga, which belongs to the first century B. C. or A. D., and in the land grants of the Andhra king Götami. puta Satakaņi (Nasik inscrs. Nos. 11 a-b) from the beginning of the second century A. D. But I doubt very much that the facts warrant the inference, which M. Lévi draws from them. The great majority of the epigraphic documents of the third and second centuries B. C., like those on the Sânchi and Bharahut Stapas, in the Barabar, Nagarjuni, and Katak hill cave and on the various relic vessels, consists of short dedicatory or votive inscriptions, which in India never, not even in late times, bear the writer's name. If those are deducted, -as certainly must be done there remain for the third century twenty-three Asoka inscriptions, two of which, the Girnar and Mansehra versions of the Rock Edicts, are mutilated at the end and the Sohgauri copper-plate. For the second century B. C. there are only two documents, Khâravêla's Hathigumphê inscription and the Andhra inscription from the Nânåghat, which latter again is mutilated at the end. It seems to me inadmissible to conclude that, because the twenty-three complete inscriptions of the third and second centuries do not shew writers' names, the sentences in three others, apparently containing such a name, must be interpreted differently in order to eliminate it. In my opinion the basis of facts is much too narrow for the inference. And its precariousness becomes still more apparent, if it is borne in mind that only one among the twenty-three inscriptions, Khâravela's, belongs to the class of the Prasastis, in which later the writer's name is mentioned very frequently, though by no means invariably. Later edicts, like those of Aśôka, have not yet been found, and it is impossible to say what the later practice may have been in such cases. I can, therefore, not see any necessity to demur to the translation, "Written by the scribe Pada," and it seems to me that in the early inscriptions the insertion of writers' names was irregular, jast as the use of Maugalas, of which a trace is found only in the two separate Edicts of Jaugada, and the use of signs of interpunctuation. The greater regularity in these and other respects begins only, when the Brahman schoolmen obtained a stronger influence in the royal offices.
With respect to M. Lévi's own interpretation, "Written in the pada-script by the writer," I must point out that the texts of both the versions, where the important word is preserved either fully or in part, read according to the impressions and the perfectly trustworthy facsimiles very distinctly padena, which cannot be an equivalent of padena. M. Lévi may have been misled by a remark of mine in my first notice of the Siddapur edicts, where I stated that one of the versions reads [pajdena. The error was caused by the indistinctness of the photograph according to which I worked, and it has been corrected in my edition in the Epigraphia Indica.
MISCELLANEA. DOUBLE KEY.
Stevens' informant thought the word to be "key" A WELL-KNOWN Netherlands Indian coin turns of which the coin in question was the double. up under this extraordinary perversion of the 1775. - "Batavia. 8 Doits make 1 Casl, or real word in Stevens, Guide to East Indian Trade. Doublekye." - Stevens, Guide, p. 124. It is sufficient to say that it representa dubbeltje, 1775. "Malacca. The Money, most current through the established commercial corruption in the Shops and Bazaars, is Rupees, Schillings, thereof, doubleky.
Doublokyes, and Doits." -Stevens, Guide, 1711.-“Malacca. Skillings, Double-kees, and p. 127. Stivers, are the currant Money. Two Stivers, 1805. - "The Memorandum of 1805 by Lieu. or Pence, are one Doublekee, three Doublokees tenant-Governor Farquhar (J. Ind. Arch. Vol. V. one Skilling, and 8 Skillings one Rix Dollar." - p. 418) speaks of doublekies or cuprings, the Lockyer, Trade in India, p. 69.
doubleky being the Dutch coin of 2 stuyvers, or 1775.-Malacca. A Tangoe is 6 Stivers, or 10 doits." - Chalmers, Colonial Currency, 1893, 3 double Keys, or 3 Cash.” - Stevens, Guide, p. 382 n. p. 87. The peculiar presentation of the expression 1814. "10 doits or 2 stivers and a half are « double Key," considering the use of capitals in 1 dubbeltjo." - Raffles, Java, Vol. II. Apps., English printing at the period, shews that p. clxvii.
