Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 36

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1919
The fourth letter is ch. Mr. Ja yaswal rightly observes that this is composed of three strokes whereas the Asokan ch is made up of only two strokes. He fails to notice, however, that this is the characteristic of leter ch, and is led to remark :-“The only exception to this in Asoka chs is the third specimen at Girnar which is the nearest approach to our ch, in the whole range of Indian Epigraphy.” (p. 92). The fact is, however, that our letter has a far inore striking resemblance to the third speciinen of Kushana ch represented in Bühler's Taffel.
The next letter is chha. Here again, Mr. Jayaswal has rightly remarked that our letter consists of three strokes while the Asokan tends to a two-stroke coniposition, but he ignores the legitimate conclusion therefrom, viz., that it belongs to a later period. The lotters ch and chh seem to be joined together by a stroke.
The sixth letter is unfortunately blurred and offers considerable difficulty. Tte chisel marks may be more or less made out by holding the reverse of the estampage before, a looking glass. The distinct portion consists of an indented vertical line ending in a loop on tho left. A closer examination, however, reveals the fact that the upper portion of the indented line also has a similar loop on the left whereas a similar though a smaller loop appears at the right end of the vertical line. The letter thus seems to consist of three big dots and may be read as i, while, along with the conjunct i sign at the top, the whole thing may be taken to represent i. It may, however, be justly doubted whether the faint loops on the upper left and the lower right enda really form part of the letter. If they do not, the letter may be road as vi as it greatly resembles the vi in Allahabad inscription represented in Bühler's Taffel (IV, II-35.)
The last two letters seem to me to be really numerical symbols. The first of them consists of an upper and a lower portion. The upper portion, which is entirely above the top line of the letters in the inscription, consists of two equal vertical lines joined by a base of about equal length. The lower portion consists of the downward projection of the right vertical line and a slanting line issuing from it on the left just a little below where it is joined by the base line. The whole thing thus looks like a big pta and this is the wellknown symbol for 40. .
The last symbol has also two distinct parts. The lower one is a figure like ka, and the upper one consists of a vertical line joined by a slightly slanting base line with the vertical line of ka. This was the well known form for 4 during both the Kushana and Gupta periods and we may interpret the symbol in our record as such. (Of course if the last two signs are to be read as letters, Mr. Chanda is right in reading them as víke.) The complete inscription may, therefore, be read as :
Gate (yakhe?) Lechchhai (vi) 40, 4. It may be translated as
“the year 44 of the Lechchaîs ur Lechchhavis having expired.” The Lechchavi is the same as the wellknown Lichchhavi. The form Lechchhai also neours in the Jaina Kalpasdtra. The Lichchhavi era is also well known and its initial date according to the calculation of M. Sylvain Lévi, falls in the year A.D. 110-11. The inscription may therefore be taken to denote that the statue on which it was incised was made in the year 44 of the Lichchhavi era which is equivalent to A.D. 154-155.
6 Kalpasutra edited by Jacobi, p. 65.