these are only hand copies, carefully reduced, it is true, by squares, but still only hand copies, and not fac-similes or impressions. I have myself visited both of these places, and I can state that I have not seen any inscriptions that would yield better impressions than the great Satrap and Andhra records of the Nâsik caves. The most beautiful and perfectly accurate impressions or rubbings of these precious records might have been made by Mr. West in onetenth of the time which was occupied in making his much less trustworthy hand reductions.

Taking Dr. Stevenson's translations altogether, there is no doubt that he has succeeded in giving the general scope of all the more important inscriptions, and has thereby added a very valuable amount of authentic information to the scanty records of early Indian history. With some of the shorter inscriptions he has been less successful; for instance, he has taken Dâmilaya as a masculine name, and identified Dâmilâ with the famous Chânakya, the minister of Chandra Gupta Maurya, thus ignoring, not only the feminine possessive termination in aya, but also the preceding feminine word Bhikhuniya, or "mendicant nun, the inscription, in fact, being the simple record of a gift of the female mendicant Dámilá.* In a second short inscription, by reading Maharavisa, "of the emperor," instead of Maharathisa, "of Maharashtra," he identifies the Nayak, or "petty chief," Agnimitra of Mahârâshtra with the great King Agnimitra of Magadha, the son of Pushpamitra, the founder of the Sunga dynasty.t Again, in his anxiety to obtain some name that would help to fix the dates of these inscriptions, he has identified Sakara with Vikramâditya by reading Sakari, where the preceding names of Nabhaga, Nahusha, and Janamejaya, as well as the following name of Yayâti, should have shown him that the solar hero Sagara was the person really intended.‡

*Historical names and facts contained in the Kânhari inscriptions.-Bombay Journal, V., page 29, No. 14, Inscription from Kanhari.

+ Sahyadri inscriptions.-Bombay Journal, V., page 152, No. 1, Inscription from Karle. On the Nasik cave inscriptions (Bombay Journal, V., page 43, No. 1 Inscription), Dr. Bhau Daji has adopted this erroneous identification of Vikramâditya in his Essay on Kalidasa. I pointed out Dr. Stevenson's error to Mr. Fergusson, but he refers to it as if a Vikramaditya was mentioned by name.-See his Essay on Indian Chronology, page 52, note 1 ("The Vikramaditya mentioned in Gotamiputra's inscription is evidently, from the company in which he is named, of pre-historic antiquity"). Mr. Fergusson must have remembered imperfectly what I told him, for there is no mention whatever of any Vikramâditya in Gotamiputra's Nasik inscription.

To Dr. Stevenson we owe the first real progress that was achieved since Prinsep, in reading the numerical figures of these old inscriptions. But he contented himself with noting the more obvious cyphers, and hastily adopted values for others, which in one case led him to make the curious blunder of assigning thirty-two days to a fortnight. This happened from reading the letter y as the figure for 30, by which he changed "batiya 2" into "bati 32."*

Dr. Stevenson also published several papers on the early religion of the Hindus of Southern India,† and a single paper on the Tithyas or Tirthakas of the Buddhists, whom he identifies with the Gymnosophists of the Greeks, and with the Digambara sect of Jains. These papers show much patient research and accurate observation in a new and interesting field of inquiry, and lead us to regret that Dr. Stevenson should have been cut off in the very midst of his career, just when his judgment had become mature, and promised to guide his acknowledged scholarship to useful results.

Since Stevenson's death the study of archæology in Western India has been taken up ably and enthusiastically by a Native gentleman, DR. BHAU DAJI, whose contributions to the Bombay Journal have thrown much light on the early history of the northern half of the peninsula. As a scholar he very early earned the thanks of all students of Indian literature and history by his essay on the Poet Kâlidâsa, and by his translations of the inscriptions in the Ajanta Caves, and of the inscriptions of Rudra Dâma and Skanda Gupta at Junagarh.§ His reputation has since been amply maintained by his interesting and valuable notice of the "Inroads of the Scythians into India,"|| and by his discovery of the values of several of the unknown early numerals which had puzzled Dr. Stevenson.T

See Journal of Bombay Asiatic Society, Vol. V., No. 18, inscription from Karle, line 3.

Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, V., pp. 189, 264, and VI., 239, "On the anteBrahmanical worship of the Hindus of the Dakhan ;" ditto, VII., 1, "On the intermixture of Buddhism with Brahmanism in the religion of the Hindus of the Dakhan ;" ditto, VII., 64, "On the Buddha-Vaishnavas of the Dakhan."

Bombay Asiatic Society's Journal, Vol. V.

§ Bombay Asiatic Society's Journal, VI., published in 1867, "On the Sanskrit Poet Kalidasa;" ditto, VII., "Ajanta Inscriptions," and "Translations of the Rudra Dâma and Skanda Gupta Inscriptions at Junagarh."

Ditto, IX., p. 139, "The Inroads of the Scythians into India."

Ditto, VIII., p. 225, "The Ancient Sanskrit Numerals in the Cave Inscriptions, and

on the Sah Coins."

e

But Dr. Bhau Dâji's judgment has not kept pace with his scholarship, and he has consequently been led to the publication of several very grave errors. He thus rashly announces his condemnation of Dr. Mill's translation of part of the Bhitari Inscription: "I may now warn writers on Indian antiquities against implicitly receiving as correct the names given by Dr. Mill of the female connexions of the Guptas, namely, Lichchhavi and Kumâri Devi."* I am happily in a position to settle this point by proving the absolute accuracy of Dr. Mill's translation, by referring Dr. Bhau Dâji to the gold coins of Chandra Gupta bearing two figures, male and female, on the obverse, and a female seated on a lion on the reverse. These precious coins would almost seem to have been designed by Chandra Gupta's mint-master for the special purpose of refuting Dr. Bhau Dâji's assertion, by labelling the two figures on the obverse as "Chandra Gupta" and "Kumari Devi," and by adding the name of Lichchhavayah on the reverse.t

In another place he has seriously proposed the alteration of the Chinese chronology of the pilgrim Hwen Thsang by sixty years to suit the date of Jayendra of Kashmir, simply because Hwen Thsang mentions that, on his arrival at the capital of Kashmir, he was lodged in the Jayendra Vihara. But surely one may sleep in a palace of Akbar without becoming a contemporary of that great Mogul. If not, then Hwen Thsang's date is hopelessly dubious, for he had already lodged in the Hushkara Vihára opposite Varâhamûla, and must, therefore, have been a contemporary of the IndoScythian prince Hushka or Huvishka, at the latter end of the first century before Christ.

I pass over some wild identifications proposed in Dr. Bhau Daji's "Brief Survey of Indian Chronolgy," to note the curious error in what he calls a correct genealogical table of the Balabbi Kings supported by dates from copper plates. In this genealogy I notice that Dhruva Sena, who is dated in 310, is followed by six generations, all of which are made to pass away by 346, so that seven generations, including Dhruva

* Bombay Asiatic Society's Journal, VII., p. 216.

+ I possess two of these coins with the legends quite legible. The names of the King and Queen are written perpendicularly. The reverse legend has hitherto been erroneously read as Panch Chhavayah.

Sena, or six without him, are born, marry, and die in 36 years, which allows exactly six years to each generation.*

His last proposal is to read cha Gilika rájena in the Khâlsi version of the famous passage in Asoka's edicts, which gives the names of the four Kings,-Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, and Alexander,—thus making Gilika a Pali form of the Latin Græci. But this name was not applied to the Hellênes until long after Asoka's time, and could not properly have been applied to the Macedonians at any time. Dr. Bhau Dâji says "I take this opportunity of announcing that the word Kilakila, or Kailakila, Yavanas, which puzzled me before, is only a corruption, or rather a mislection of Gilika or Greek."+ As I furnished Dr. Bhau Dâji with his copy of this portion of the Khâlsi inscription, I am quite familiar with the words which he has thus strangely perverted. I read them as chatuli, 4, rajena, "the four, 4, Kings," taking the character, which he has made a k, to be the numerical symbol for 4, a mere repetition of the written word chatuli. The same repetition is found also in the Ariano Pali version of Kapurdigiri, where the word chaturi is followed by four upright strokes IIII, like the well known Roman numeral, which cannot possibly mean anything else but the simple number 4.

But in spite of these errors due to hasty opinions and rash speculations, which will no doubt be modified hereafter by more mature judgment, I feel that Dr. Bhau Dâji is a worthy successor of Dr. Stevenson, and that he has well sustained the cause of Indian archæology in the Bombay Presidency.

Of my own share in the progress of Indian archæology I may be permitted to give a brief statement of what I have written, and of the discoveries which I have been able to make during a long and active career in India. The following is a list of my writings on my Indian antiquities:

1.-1840-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, IX., p. 867-Description of some new Bactrian coins.

Bombay Journal, VIII., p. 236, "Brief Survey of Indian Chronology ;"-Genealogy of Balabhi Kings, p. 245.

+ Bombay Asiatic Society's Journal, IX., p. CXXIV. I note that both Dr. Bhau Dâji and Babu Rajendra Lâl use the barbarous word "mislection." I believe that the Kilakila Yavanas are not mentioned until after the Andhras, that is, not until several centuries after the total extinction of the Greek power in North-West India and the Panjab. They were probably either Indo-Scythians, or Parthians.

2.-1842-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, XI., p.

130-Second notice of some new Bactrian coins.

3.-1843-Royal Asiatic Society's Journal-Account of the discovery of the ruins of the Buddhist city of Sankisa. 4.-1843--Numismatic Chronicle-The ancient coinage

of Kashmir.

5.-1843-Numismatic Chronicle-Attempt to explain some of the monograms on the Greek coins of Ariana and India.

6.-1845-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, XIV., p. 480-Notice of some unpublished coins of the IndoScythians.

7.-1854-The Bhilsa Topes, or Buddhist Monuments of Central India, 8vo.

8.-1854-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, XXIII.Coins of Indian Buddhist Satraps with Greek inscriptions.

9.-1863-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, XXXII.— Translation of the Bactro-Pali inscription from Taxila.

10.-1865-Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, XXXIV.— Coins of the nine Nâgas, and of two other dynasties of Narwar and Gwalior.

11.-1867-Numismatic Chronicle-Coin of the Indian Prince Sophytes, a contemporary of Alexander the Great.

12.-1868-1869-1870-Numismatic Chronicle-" Coins of Alexander's successors in the East," Part I.; the Greeks of Bactriana, Ariana, and India.

13.-1870-The ancient Geography of India, Vol. I.; the Buddhist period, 8vo.

In my account of James Prinsep's final labour, I have been able to show from his letters that the anxiety which he publicly expressed to obtain more specimens of the latter coins," which mark the decadence of Greek dominion and Greek skill," and of "those coins on which the Native and Greek legends differ, or record different names," continued down to the last, when in October 1838 he was compelled by ill health to give up work and to seek for change of air in England. This subject I was able to follow up in 1840, when the acquisition of a large number of coins from Afghanistan put me in possession of new specimens of Gondophares and Abdagases, which I published in the Journal of