eastern Dikpala. The Purannas also corroborate it in a passage which describes the courses of seven rivers rising from fara in the Himalayas-the three western rivers, Sitā, Chakshu and Sindhu the Ganga, and the three eastern rivers, Naiini, Hlādini and Pāvan One of these eastern rivers is described as rising from fazucę in the Himalayas, flowing to the east and then to the south and then emptying its water in the Ocean near Indradvipa[इन्द्र- दीपसमीपे तु प्रविष्टा लवणेोदधिम् Matsya, CXX1. 57.] Thus Indradvipa was Burma. And this conjecture seems to be supported by so great an authority as Ptolemy. While deseribing India beyond the Ganges, Ptolemy (M'crindle, p. 219) mentions the country of Kirrhadia [- the far placed, in the Puranas, to the east end of the ninth 'dvipa'--the 'Sea-girt' Kumāri] producing Malabathrum; then he locates the Silver country [Arakan] and then the "Gold country" [the Suvarnabhumi of Buddhist literature and the sonâparânta of Burmese documents] And again he remarks (M'crin dle, p. 221), between the ranges of Bepyrrhos and Damassa the country furthest north is inhabited by the Aninakhai [occupying the mountain region to the north of the Brahmaputra, corresponding to a portion of Lower Assam-M'crindle's note, p. 222]; to the south of these Ptolemy places the Indaprathai. Thus in the dvipa or peninsula of Burma and just to the south of Lower Assam we hear the name of Inda or Indra. Prathai is to be connected with

Prastha meaning a plain level country.

Indra-drtpa was, thus, Burma and it was to the east and Tamra parna (Ceylon) to the south of India. Hence Kaserumat which is mentioned, in the Purāņas, between them is to be located to the S.-E of India. The word means 'abounding in excellent Kaserus' (called Kesur in Bengali andin Kaseru Hindi) for which Singapur is famous. So I propose to identify Kaserumat with the Malay Peninsula in the Wellesley district of which was discovered a fourth century A. D. Pillar inscription of the Buddhist Sea-Captain Mahābāvika Budhagupta of Raktamṛttikā (in Murshidabad district) showing that the Hindus were acquainted with it (1).

(1) Kern's Verspreide Geschriften, III (1915), p. 255.

The only other detpt which I can identify with certainty is Gandhrva. It is identical with Gandhara, the valley of the Kabuwith a small tract of land to the east of the Indus. Its position in the Puranic list of eight dvipas [Indra (E.), Kaserumit (S.-E), Támra parna (S), Gabhastimat (SW), Nāga (W), Saumya (N.W.), Gnādharva (N.) and Vāruṇa( NE)2] would suggest that it is the northern dvipa (-doab) and Indian geographers placed Gāndhāra to the N. (and not NW) of India. (3)

That the country of Gāndhāra was also known as the Land of the Gandharvis is clear from the following verses of the Rāmāya

na:

अयं गन्धर्व्वविषयः फलमूलेोपशोभितः ॥

सिन्धोरुभयतः पार्श्वे देशः परमशेोभनः ।

तं च रचन्ति गन्धव्वीः सायुधाः युद्धकोविदाः ॥

[Rāmāyaṇa, Uttarakanda, CXIII, 10-11.]

तक्ष ं तक्षशिलायां तु पुष्कलं पुष्कलावते ।

गन्धर्व्वदेशे रुचिरे गन्धारविषये च सः ॥

[Uttarakanda, CXIV, 11.]

mean:

These verses This exceedingly charming country on both the banks of the Sindhu [ Indus ] decorated with fruits and roots is the land [fa] of Gandharvas. It is protected by the Gandh arvas who are expert in fighting. [They were defeated by Bharata, the brother of Rama; their country was divided into two provinces, each of which was governed by a son of Bharata.] He [(Bharata) installed his son] Taksha at Takshasila and [his other son] Pushkala at Pushkalavati [identified with modern Charsada; Peucelaotis of classical writers] in the charming Gandharva-country (also called) Gāndhára-visaya (district). We thus sea that Gandharva was Gāndhārā. It was, as Yuan Chwang has aptly remarked, the borderland of the Barbarians who were Indians in culture and religion (i.e.

(2) Varuna is the lord of West and so Varuna ought to be located to the west. But the crder of the dvipas as mentioned in the Puranas would suggest that it is in the N..E.

(3) See the Bhuvanakosha of the Puranas-, LVII; ĦĈE,

CX1V; वायु, XLF— and the कूर्म्मविभाग of the वृहत्संहिता.

Buddhism). So it was considered as a separate dvipa included within Greater India and not as a part of India proper.

As for the four other dvipas, a search is to be made for them keeping in view their directions as suggested by the order of their names in the Puranic list. Gabhastimat, Nâga, and Saumya are to be located in S.-W., W. and N.-W. respectively. And we have Laccadive, Maldive or Ernaculam in the S.-W, Salsette, Elephanta (meaning the same as Naga or Elephant), and Kathiawar in the W, and Catch in the N.-W (according to the direction of Kurmavibhaga and Bhuvanakosa). Vâruņa of N.-E. seems to be the Indian colony in Central Asia the exploration and research in connection with which by Sir A. Stein and a host of Russian, French, German, English and Japanese scholars are supplying new light on Indian culture.

The above are my suggestions for the location of the eight dotpas of the Purâņas. As for the location of Indra, Tāmraparṇa and Gandhara there cannot be any doubt. Tamraparna has long ago been correctly identified. The two others I identify-Indra on the authority of the Purāņas and probably also of Ptolemy and Gandharva on the authority of the Râmāyaṇa. As for the location of others I offer suggestions only. But what I have pointed out is enough to show that the Puranic nine divisions of Bhāratvarsha are not so many provinces of India but of Greater India.

THE ANTIQUITY OF WRITING IN INDIA.

BY RAY BAHADUR BISHUN SVARUP.

I.-Introduction.

To find out when writting was first introduced in India is a difficult, an almost impossible, task. The inscriptions found are mostly not older than 300 or 250 B. C.; but these by no means represent the first specimens of writing in this country, and earlier inscriptions are gradually coming out to light. A vase discovered in 1893 at the borders of Nepal bears a small inscription which is considered as belonging to the 4th century B. C. The inscription in Aramaic recently discovered at Taxila is supposed to belong to the 5th century B. C. In the Calcutta museum there are two statues bearing small inscriptions, which, it has been said, represent the two kings Aja and Nandavardhan of the Saisunaga family. If this be correct, which is not improbable, the inscription belongs to the 5th century B. C.

The chief writing materials, which have existed in the country from the earliest ages, were the palm leaves, made into small pieces and written upon with an iron style, and the bark of birch tree, known as "bhūrja patra," to write on which an ink called "masi " was used. The former is still extensively used in many parts of the country for writing sacred books, horoscopes and unimportant documents. Before the introduction of paper, all writing, books, documents, grants, etc., was done on these materials which grew indigenous in India, the birch in the upper parts of the country, and the palm almost everywhere. It was not therefore found necessary to have recourse to any artificial material like clay tablets or cylinders baked afterwards as used in old Babylon. The libraries in old India had books made of birch bark and palm leaves (1) as our present libraries have books of paper. They were unfortunately equally destructible, and it is no wonder that at this distant age no trace of them is found.

(1) A lot of these can still be seen in the Sankaracharya library in the Govardhana Matha at Puri, and it is said that many books have been destroyed by white ants and other insects,

We cannot also expect anything in the way of finding old monuments built in memory of some ancient kings or important personages, as were the pyramids of Egypt, which might exhibit some writing. From very old times it was customary among the Hindus to cremate dead bodies. The body was considered as a mere covering or clothing of the eternal soul, and useless after it was abandoned. No grave or monument was therefore built. The Vedic burial mounds discovered at Nandanagaḍh, and the galleries containing statues of kings as mentioned by Bhása in his drama. Pratima were probably rare things and cannot be counted

upon.

There was no occasion to write on rocks until the great Asoka thought of perpetuating his edicts by having them engraved on rocks in different parts of his Empire or on stone pillars erected for the purpose.

It is evident from the above facts that in India which has been a seat of successive antagonistic faiths, and subject to invasions by men inimical to its religion and institutions, there is not much chance of getting ancient records, and it would be a mistake to conclude from their absence that they never existed, and that the Indians before the time of the Aśoka inscriptions were ignorant of the art of writing. Such a mistake, however, has been committed by no less eminent a scholar than Professor Max Müller, who thought even the great grammarian Pánini, whom he takes as a man of 350 B. C., was not conversant with writing, notwithstanding his exhaustive grammar and an alphabet to start it with. Professor Weber and Dr. Böhtlingk also take the date of the Asoka inscriptions as the beginning of writing in India. But how could it be conceived that the full fledged Bráhmí alphabet of the inscriptions, which, as far as known, was not prevalent anywhere else at the time, could spring up in India all of a sudden? It must have started long before the time of Asoka. The assumption is, therefore, unfair to India; and its unfairness is the more marked when we consider the fact that India possesses the oldest of the books, the oldest and the most elaborate of grammatical works and the most scientific alphabet in the whole world.

These things alone would have credited India with the invention of writing, especially as her climate and seclusion were