KAPURDIGIRI, a town with Buddhist remains near Peshawur. The Buddhist remains now ex isting in India are of four distinct classes, 1st, Cave temples, containing topes, sculptures, naintinirs. and numerous inserintions : 2d. Vihara or monasteries; 3d, Inscriptions on rocks and pillars ; 4th, Topes or religious edifices. The Vihara or monasteries are of two kinds,—lst, Cave Vihara, of which several magnificent speci mens have been published by Mr. Fergusson ; and 2d, Structural Vihara, of which some speci mens still remain at Sanchi, but in a very ruinous condition. The inscriptions on the pillars at Delili and Allaliabad, and on the Tirhut pillars at 31:ithiya and Radliiya, were deciphered and translated in the early part of the 19th century by the remarkable ingenuity of the late James Prinsep. The inscriptions on the rocks at Juna gin in Gujerat, and at Dhauli in Cuttack, were also interpreted by him. A third version of the rock inscriptions (but in the Ariano-Pali cha racter), which was found at Kapurdigiri, near Peshawur, has been carefully collated with the others by Professor Wilson. Many short inscrip tions from Gaya, Sanchi, and Birat, as well as from the cave temples of Southern India, have also been published at different times. The rock inscriptions contain the names of Antiochus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, and Magas. The inscrip tions in the able work of Major Cunningham arc of greater interest, and of much higher importance than all that had before been published. The Kapur digiri inscription is on a rock, on the side of a rocky and abrupt hill, near a village of that name in the district inhabited by the Yusufzai. The
mode of reading it was discovered by Mr. E. Norris. It reads from right to left, is in the Aryan or Bactrian character, and is nearly a transliteration of that of Girnar ; and the language, he says, was in use for several centuries throughout that ex tensive line of country over which the Seleucidm and their successors held dominion, that is to say, from the Paropamisus or Caucasus to the upper part of the Panjab, including all Bactria, Hindu Kush, and Afghanistan.
At least two classes of people seem to have employed the language expressed in this cha racter, the one using the Aryan or Bactrian of Bamian, Kapurdigiri, etc., the other using the 13udh or Lat character found on the Girnar rock and on the pillar and in the cave temple inscriptions ; and that these two classes of people seem to be the Getm and Salm, the so called Aryan character being that used by the Getm, while the so-called Lat character was that of the Sake. The Lat character occurs rarely in the southern part of the Peninsula ; still it is the only one used on the sculptures at Amaravati, which have been described by tho Rev. W. Taylor ; and while in charge of the Government Central Museum at Madras, the Editor despatched to England a large collection of its sculptures, which have since been described by Mr. James Fergusson in his Tree and Serpent Worship, and are now arranged into the wall of the great stair of the British Museum.