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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
156
OLD BRAHMI INSCRIPTIONS
not meet the vertical leaving a space between them. We doubt the correctness of his reading mamdam. Mr. R. D. Banerji's estampage clearly shows that the first letter of Mr. Jayaswal's Avarāja is pu. We make bold to dispute namgalena kasayati because the letter after namgale or nagale is ne and is intended to be connected with kasayati.
Fourthly, he proposes to read in I. 12 Tramira-desa-samghātam, correcting his previous correction tamara-deha-samghatam, and takes it to mean "the combination (or league) of the Tramira (Tamil) countries." His reading Tramira has come very near to our tamira or timira. Mr. Jayaswal does not at all consider that here the word samghata may also be interpreted in the sense of samkhata meaning "called". Regarding his reading desa, our first objection is that in the estampage of Mr. Vats, the letter da shows similar e-strokes on both ends. Our second objection is that the use of the cerebral sibilant ga is unexpected. Mr. R. D. Banerji's estampage tends to produce the appearance of the first letter as ti, and the estampage of Mr. Vats that of tra. We cannot think that here Tramira occurs as a spelling for the Tamil (Tamila or the Sk. Dravida), due to the fact that la or da is in all cases represented by da, and nowhere by ra.
Fifthly, he proposes to read in I. 16 vinisṛto, correcting his previous reading vinis(i) to. He has evidently relied too much on the estampage of Mr. Vats, forgetting that in taking an impression, a man, however careful and cautious he may be, is apt to exercise his own discretion in determining the outlines of the letters. If we were the men engaged for the purpose, we would have found ourselves quite at liberty to mark out the letter as s(i). Anyhow, it is certain that the letter was never meant to be sr, cf. the letter by in Bṛhasväti on Yasamita's Brick-tablet (JRAS, 1912, p. 120).
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