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$ 35, E.)
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
may also be intended to indicate the wish, often expressed explicitly in words, that the donation, to which the inscription refers, may last" as long as sun and stars endure."
Similar illustrations of the contents of the inscriptions and symbolical representations of the wishes and of other matters expressed in them, are not rare. Corresponding engravings on the copper-plates are less common. But on these the royal coat of arms is sometimes engraved below or by the side of the text, instead of on a separate seal, and the stone inscriptions, too, occasionally exhibit such devices. Among the MSS., those of the Nepalese Buddhists and of the Jainas of Gujarāt are often richly ornamented and perfectly illustrated.3 Specimens of illuminated Brahmanical MSS. are, however, not wanting.
E. - Corrections, omissions, and abbreviations. In the earliest inscriptions, as in the Asoka edicts (see, e. g., Kālsi edict XII, line 31) erroneous passages [86] are simply scored out. Later, dots or short strokes above or below the line are used to indicate clerical errors. The same sigús occur in MSS., where, however, in late times the delenda are covered with turmeric or a yellow paste. On the copper-plates, they are frequently beaten out with a hammer, and the corrections are then engraved on the smoothed spot. We possess even entire palimpsests of this kind.
In the Asoka edicts and other early inscriptions, letters and words, left out by mistake, are added above or below the line without any indication of the place to which they belong, or they are also entered in the interstices between the letters. In the later inscriptions and the MSS., the spot of the omission is indicated by a small upright or inclined cross, the so-called kakapada or hansapada, and the addenda are given either in the margin? or between the lines.
A Svastika is sometimes put instead of the cross. In South Indian MSS., the cross is ased also to indicate intentional omissions, made in Sūtras with commentaries. Elsewhere. intentional omissions, or such as have been caused by defects in the original of the copy, are marked by dots on the ling or by short strokes above the line.10 The modern sign for the elision of an initial A, the so-called Avagraha, has been traced first on the Baroda copper-plate of the Răstrakūta king Dhruva, dated A. D. 834-35.11 A Rundala, "ring," or & Svastika, served to mark unintelligible passages ; see Kashmir Report, 71, and KIELHORN, Mehābhāşya, 2, 10, note.
In Western India, abbreviations are found first in an inscription of the Andhra kiny Siri-Pulumáyi (Näsik, No. 15) of about A. D. 150, and in the nearly contemporaneous one of Sirisena- or Sakasena-Mădhariputa (Kaņheri, No. 14). In the north-west, they are very common in the inscriptions of the Kuşana period. The commonest instances are: - samvu, sara, saw and sa for samvatsara; gri, ir or gi for grişmüh or gimhānan; va for varsah; he for hemantah; pa for pakhe; and diva or di for divasa; and they are only found when the dates are expressed by figures. In this connection, they are used regularly in the later inscriptions and even in our days. But in these later times we find usually samvat, which
1 Thus, the wish for the duration of the grant is expressed by representations of the sun and moon.
? See, e. 9., B.ASRWI. No. 10, "Cave-temple Inscriptions," facsimile at p. 101, and KIEL HORN'B remarks, EI. 3, 307; coats of arms are found in facsimiles at IA. 6, 49 ff., 192; EI. 3, 16
* See, e. 9., W DR, Verzeichn. d. Berlin Sank. und Prak. Hdnohriften, 2, 3, pl. 2; Fifth Oriental Congress, 2, 2, 189 ff., pl. 2; Pal. Soo.. Or. Ser., plo. 18, 31; RAJENDRALAL MITRA, Notices of Sansk. MSS. 3, pl. 1, compare also B.ESI P. 82, 4. • Compare BESIP. 83, $ 5.
IA, 7, 251 (No. 47); 13, 84, note 20; EI, 3, 41, note 6. 6 See, e. g., Kalsi edict XIII, 2, line 11 ; thus also later, see, e. 9., faosimile at EI. 8, 914, line 5. + See, e. g., facsimiles, EI. 3, 52, pl. 2, line 1; EI, 3, 278, line 11. & Faosimile, IA, 6, 32, pl. 3.
Apartamba Dharmasutra!, p. II (10). 2. Compare, e. g., IA. 6, 19, note, line 33; 20, note, line 11; very common in Kashmir MSS. 11 IA, 14, 193: compare FLERT, EI. 3, 329; and KIELHORN, EI, 4, 214, noto 7.
