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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
NOTES
153
fat base, and the letters tended to show thickened tops or serifs. Although we felt that these were the workmanship of one group of artists who represented a particular locality, we found no means of ascertaining what locality of India was actually represented by them.
We bave now, thanks to the continued efforts and successes of the explorers and epigraphists, a good number of inscriptions, the letter forms of which show a close resemblance in many respects, to wit: (1) our old Brāhmi inscriptions in the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves ; (2) Mr. Jackson's second Barābar inscription recording the name of the rock on which it is engraved as Goradhagiri ; (3) the Sanchi Gateway inscriptions incised during the reign of one King Siri-Sātakaội ; (4) two Pabhosa inscriptions of Āşā lhasena referring to Bahasatimita; (5) Gotamimitrā's inscription referring to King Vişnumitra 1 ; and (6) Mr. Jayaswal's “Sunga Inscription of Ayodhya," ? referring to Puşyamitra. Curiously enough, while these epigraphs, especially the inscriptions of Khāravela and Aşādbasena, all referring to Bahasatimita, show all the signs of later development, later than the Mauryan, Yasamitā's Brick Tablet inscription referring to Brhāsvātimita is found in Brāhmi characters which are decidedly Mauryan
If Brhāsvätimita of Yasamita's Brick-tablet was, as Dr. Vogel takes him to be, the same person as Bahasatimita of Āsādhasena's inscriptions, or the same person as Bahasatimita of Khāravela's Hathi-Gumphā record, we get at last a fact, which altogether upsets Rai Bahadur Chanda's chronological order of the Brābmi inscriptions. And we are inclined also to think alike with Mr. Jayaswal who says: “The Sungas both in inscription and on coins used a script whose letter-formas are of a different style, and more advanced than the letter-forms of the later Mauryas. In the Besnagar inscription of the later Sunga Bhāgabhadra, we have the Maurya forms. There being thus more than one style of writing in vogue at one and the same time, the chronology of the records of the second century B.C. and thereabout is not deducible merely from letter-forms."'4
1. Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 3, p. 56. 2. JBORS, Vol. XIII, Parts III-IV, p. 247. 3. JRAS, 1912, p. 120. 4. JBORS, Vol. XIII, Parts III-IV, p. 249.
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