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CHAPTER III]
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that Part VI is written calligraphically, while Parts V and VII are written in an extremely cursive and careless fashion. Also, there is a not inconsiderable similarity of writing in the three Parts, which extends even to the use of the same signs of interpunctuation (see p. xxxix), parts V-VII having in this respect a common system differing from that in Parts I-III. Moreover, there is the fact that the same name Yaéamitra (ie., Yaśômitra) occurs both in the calligraphically written Part VI (fol. 4a, 1. 6, ed. pp. 225, 230) and the cursively written Part VII (fol. 2a, 1. 3, ed. pp. 237-9). This name must be that of the votary, who either wrote the manuscript himself, or got it written for himself by a scribe. For, as the Japanese scholar, Dr. K. Watanabe, explains (Journal, Royal Asiatic Society, 1907, p. 263), it was a custom in ancient China and Japan" that "a votary must recite his name in the copy of a devotional work which he either wrote himself, or caused to be written for himself. On the other hand, there is the very significant circumstance that Part VI is paginated on the obverse side of its folios, while Part VII bore its folio numbers on the reverse sides (see Chapter II, p. xx). As in the case of the two modes of writing the palatal, it is hardly conceivable that the same person should have been in the habit of using two entirely different modes of paginating. It should, also, be observed that (see Chapter VIII) Parts VI and VII contain two different portions of the same tract, and (see Chapter II) greatly differ in their quality of birch-bark and state of preservation. The explanation which best accords with all these facts seems to be that a monk, called Yaśômitra, wrote, or got written, for his own use, a copy of the protective charm, a portion of which now survives as Part VII. At a subsequent date, when that copy had become damaged, he got the damaged portion replaced by a new copy, namely the existing Part VI, on a fresh supply of superior bark, which a new arrival from India may have brought with him. Regarding the personality of Yaśômitra, it may be surmised that he must have been a Buddhist monk of great repute for saintliness and learning. For the fact that the manuscripts were found in the relic chamber of the stâpa shows that they must have been the property of the person in whose honour the stapa was erected; and to be accorded such an honour that person must have been a monk of acknowledged eminence. But whatever the exact number of writers may have been, the fact that Parts V-VII have so many peculiarities in common shows that the writer of Part VI must have been a native of the same country, or locality, in India as the writer of Parts V and VII. On the writer of Part IV, see below, p. xxxiii.
BOWER MANUSCRIPT
5. D
L
This introduces another important subject, viz., the native country of the writers of the several Parts of the Bower Manuscript. On this point the manuscript presents some very interesting evidence. In the first place, looking at Table I, a difference will be observed in the forms of the initial vowel ê. In Parts V-VII, the right side of the triangle projects, or juts out, beyond the apex. This projection is wanting in Fig. 12. Parts I-III. On consulting the Tables III, IV and VII in Bühler's Indian Palæography (in the Encyclopædia of Indoryan Research), it will be found that the projection is peculiar to epigraphic records of the southern area of the Gupta script. The forms which obtained in the northern and southern areas respectively are shown in Fig. 12. The boundary line, as already stated, runs roughly in a south-easterly direction between N. Lat. 24° and 22°. The form of the jutting ê is shown in northern and southern areas. (a) from an inscription at Mâliyâ (about Lat. 21° 31', F. GI. No. 38, p. 164, Plate xxiv
Forms of the initial & in the
J J
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xxix
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