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APRIL, 1907.)
AROHÆOLOGY IN WESTERN TIBET.
95
Philological Notes. khyaba-'aphagopa, I am told that this is a locally well-known title of Maitreya; bat what khyaba means I have been unable to discovor.
khra sval pa (or yalpa), I am told that this expression means very bright, shining. abyardpa, perfect stem of the infinitive abyor[d]pa. rdo 'aburdu, used in the sense of according to stone,' of stone,'
Spigraphical Notes. Though the characters of this inscription are of the ordinary dBu-oan type, there are a few pecularities in them, which point to its antiquity, + (a) The letter ng has a stroke attached to the right end of its lower line, which makes it look almost like a dBu-oan p. This peculiarity has not yet been observed at Endore (Stein Collection), nor anywhere else.
(6) The i sign has not always the position of the Devanagari short i, but often that of the longi, as is also the case in the Endere Mss., and many other ancient inscriptions.
(6) The second or final consonant of the syllable is written below the first consonant. Of this we have one certain and one probable case in the previous inscription. This peculiarity is also found at Endere and in the ancient Balti Inscriptions.
A Comparison of the Ladakhi and the Endere Inscriptions.
It will be usefal here to review the peculiarities of the Endere relics, as they are the oldest datable specimens of Tibetan orthography, and to compare the most ancient West Tibetan Inscriptions with them. The question is a very important one, because on it the possibility of dating the Tibetan Inscriptions depends.
The peculiarities of the Endete M88, and Bgrafitti (8th centary) are the following: (a) The i sign takes the sbape of the Devanagart long and short i interchangeable. (6) In several cases the final consonant of the syllable is written below the first consonant, (c) The masculine definite article is in most cases phd and pho, instead of modern pa and po.
d) In many cases the ordinary c and ts are replaced by ch and the ; and both ch and the have y, d, or b prefixes attached to them, whilst in the classical orthography they are furnished only with a and m prefixes.
(e) When m comes before i ore, 4 y intervenes. ( Words ending in , 1, or are furnished with a d suffix, called drag.
A comparison of the ancient Ladakhi inscriptions with those of Endere discloses the fact, that Beveral of them exhibit some of the peculiarities of the Endere epigraphy, but not all. This leads to the supposition that the six characteristics of Endere orthography were not dropped all at once, but one by one, and Dr. L. D. Barnett has observed that, according to the Endere relics, the drag was even then on the point of disappearing (8th century A. D.).
In Ladakh, the peculiarities of the Endere epigraphy are exibited in the following inscriptious
(a) Interchange of long and short í is found in Inscriptions at Sheh; at Alchi-mkhar-gog (but only in the oldest); and at Sadpor (Baltistān).
