haps fail, but if we do, no harm will be done, and we can then return to our appointments. I do not remember whether I have ever told you that an immense quantity of the villainous stuff called brick tea is sent from Lhassa to the Gurtokh authorities, which is forcibly sold to the people, who are obliged to take much more even than they can consume themselves; and our Bhootiah traders find that they are obliged to take the surplus in exchange for their wares. Until this system is stopped, there will be never any great demand for our hill tea. This should be one of our objects if we go to Lhassa." The following is a communication from E. Thomas, Esq. to the President, dated London, 28th December, 1862. I send you by this mail an elaborate facsimile of the Taxila Inscription, alluded to in my note p. 108, Journal R. A. S. Vol. XX. a copy of which is enclosed.* I think you may rely upon this as a faithful copy† and accept it as fit to be placed, at once, in the hands of your lithographer. The pencil lines, over which I have written in ink, formed the original transcript from the copper plate, made, through the medium of a "Professor Dowson has succeeded in mastering the inscription on a steatite funereal vase, preserved in the Peshawur Museum, which proves to refer to the erection of a tope by the Brothers Gihilena and Siha-rachhitena. And finally Mr. Norris, in concert with Mr. Dowson, is engaged on a most promising inscription from the neighbourhood of Hussun Abdal, near Ráwul Pindee, in the Punjab, presented to the R. A. S. by A. A. Roberts, Esq., C. S. regarding which, Professor Dowson has obligingly communicated to me the following notice: "The plate, which is fourteen inches long by three and a half broad, is broken in the middle, where many of the letters are lost; a connected reading of the whole cannot, therefore, be hoped for. The King's name is Chhtrapa Siliako Kusuluko; these words are followed by nama, so there can be no doubt that they form the name. After the name there are some letters obliterated, and then follow the words Takhasilaye nagare utarena prachu deso, which probably mean "the country north-east of Taxila." The words Chhatrapa liako are stamped as an endorsement on the back of the plate." I myself have not had an opportunity of examining this inscription, but I should be inclined, as a first conjecture, to identify the Kusuluko with some of the Kozola Kadapes family. The figured date on the plate is ××2333, which is followed by the words Maharaysa maháta, &c. (Prinsep's Essays ii. 202, 203 )" The words Patipasa Chatra pa Liako are reversed in the plate as they are in the original, being indorsed on the back of the plate and shewing through reversed. Camera lucida, by that excellent artist, Mr. Ford, as a basis for the engraving, which is designed for the pages of the forthcoming number of our home Journal. I myself have tested every letter of the Inscription and added many that were wholly illegible when the relic was first discovered. My object in forwarding this most interesting record is, that it may be submitted to the Antiquarians in your Presidency, with a view to an independent translation being made, prior to the receipt of Professor Dowson's rendering of the text, which will probably not be published much within a month from this date. With this object of testing oriental scholarship, I abstain from all comments on the many important bearings of the document itself, though I feel bound to anticipate Professor Dowson's own announcement of his successful discovery of the value of the numerals composing the date, which even the last number of your Journal (III. 1862, p. 303) shows to be far from accomplishment by your local contributors. I must premise in order to dispel any doubts about the positive accuracy of the present interpretation, that Mr. Norris independently worked out precisely the same result on the problem involved in this inscription being submitted to him. In brief, then, the numerals employed in Arían or Bactro-Pálí Inscriptions follow an Egyptian system. Units are found to run |=1, |1=2, 11=3, but the 4, unlike the Kapurdigiri example of I, is now formed by a cross, similar to a Roman X, a symbol, it is true, we do not find in any Egyptian Hieroglyphic scheme, though the five-pointed star exceptionally denoted 5. It will be seen that the Arian eight is formed by a duplication of the four in this fashion XX. The ten is represented by a semi-circle, and, in its system of duplication, triplication, &c., proves in like manner to take after the usage of the Egyptians; though it is unquestionable that one of the less common forms of the Phoenician ten is expressed thus 1 (Gesenius p. 87), yet, to my understanding, the whole scheme seems to be based more directly upon the purely Egyptian ideal,* than upon any Hieroglyphic Numbers p. 402. Encylop. Metr. by R. S. Poole, Esq. and Revue Archéologique, p. 261, November 1862. |