The Girnar inscription was supposed by Mr. James Prinsep to be in the Pali language.
The inscriptions on the pillars at Dehli and Allahabad, and on the Tirhut pillars at Matliya and Radhia, on the rocks at Junagiri in Gujerat, and at Dhauli in Cuttack, were deciphered and translated by the remarkable ingenuity of Mr. James Prinsep. A supposed third version of the rock inscriptions (but in the Ariano-Pali character), which was found at Kapurdigiri, near Peshawur, has been carefully collated with the others by Professor Wilson. Many short inscriptions front Gaya, Sanchi, and Birat, as well as from -the cave temples of Southern India, have also been published at different times. The edicts in the rock inscriptions contain tho names of Antiochus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, and Magas.
The Aryan or Bactrian character is that used in the inscriptions at Jellalabad, Manikhyala, and Kapurdigiri on topes or tumuli, which are numer ous for about 300 miles around.
Jalalabad is in the valley of Kabul, and con tains many sepulchral topes, which also occur at Daranta and at Hidda or Idda in its neighbour hood. That at Jalalabad was opened by Mr. Masson, and the inscription makes mention of Kadiphes. It is in the Aryan character.
1lfanifileyala is situated near Jhelum, on the banks of the river of that name, called by the Greeks the Hydaspes. Many topes are there, one of which is 80 feet high, with a circumference of 320 feet.
These topes or tumuli, it is now admitted, are only cairns regularly built, and this mode of sepulture is supposed to be alluded to in the heaps and graves and tombs spoken of in Job xxi. 32, also xxx. 24, and in Jeremiah xxxi. 21; and cairns are still found scattered over all the northern parts of Europe and Asia, and down to Cape Comorin in Peninsular India.
' Inscriptions on stones and on copper plates have also been met with all over Southern India, but few of them are of a date prior to the year 1000 of the Christian era, and the larger portion are much later. Some give valuable facts and the names of kings, but the bulk of them record matters of little importance. The Lat character occurs rarely in the southern part of the Penin sula, still it is the only one used on the sculptures at Amaravati, which have described by the Rev. William Taylor and Mr. J. Fergusson ; and Surgeon-General Balfour, while in charge of the Government Central Museum at Madras, advised the despatch to London of most of the sculptures which are now placed against the wall in the staircase of the British Museum.
An extensive collection of inscriptions was made by the late Colonel Mackenzie, Surveyor General, which also the Rev. W. Taylor described.
In Malayala, as in other parts of Southern India, inscriptions occur in various ancient cha racters as well as in modern letters. The transla
tion of the copper plate grant to the Syrian Christians, which is still in their possession, has been given in the Journal of the Madras Literary Society.
The inscriptions found in the south of India are in three alphabets,—the Chera, Chalukya, and Veng,i. The first appears in Ifysore in the second half of the 5th century ' • the oldest specimen of the Chalukya is of date about the first half of that century ; the third is more modern.
The Portuguese at Goa took some inscriptions on stone to their native country, but Sir Charles Wilkins was the first to explain one (at Cintra), about the end of the 18th century. The earlier volumes of the Asiatic Researches contain several interpreted by Wilkins, Jones, and Colebrooke, and in the later volumes H. H. Wilson contributed many valuable articles on this subject. The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal about 1830 (by the articles by J. Prinsep, Dr. Mill, and• others) made immense progress ; and of later years the same journal, the Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society and of the Bombay Society, have often done much to advance the study of the Sanskrit inscriptions of India; and Mr. Norris, Professor Dowson, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Bayley, Dr.
Bhau Daji, and Babu Rajendralal Matra have been decipherers. In the south of India an immense number of inscriptions exist in the Dravidian languages, many of which are not inferior in antiquity or interest to most of the Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions of the north, though, with the exception of a few articles (in the Madras Jour nal), published by Sir W. Elliot, and containing the results of his own researches, and those of Mr. F. W. Ellis, nothing has been as yet made public. Colonel Mackenzie, however, at the be ginning of this century, made an immense collec tion of copies of inscriptions, and to the disin terested labour of Mr. C. P. Brown we owe the existence of copies of this collection, which, though purchased by Government for an enormous sum, had been neglected and suffered to rot from want of a little care. Copies of inscriptions collected by Sir W. Elliot in the Canarese country were presented by him to the R. A. Society of London. General Cunningham has made large collections of copies of inscriptions in the north of India. His Archmological Reports contain the result of his inquiries.
To copy inscriptions on stone, brush off all dust or mud, and take a mould by applying to the surface stout unglazed paper, uniformly wetted with water, and forced into the irregularities by repeated and forcible strokes with a hard clothes brush. —Dr. Burnell, A Few Suggestions; _Per gusson. See Architecture ; Dehli ; Sculpture.