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• THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

comparing them with the published transcripts of the Asoka inscriptions, I find that the first two sheets contain the celebrated edicts discovered at

Girnar, Dhauli, and Kapur di Giri. Wherever there are differences in the copies of the inscriptions from these three places, this agrees, as might be expected, with that at Dhauli. It is much to be regretted that it is worn away in many places ; still it will be of use in clearing up some of the many difficulties at tending on a correct interpretation of the Asoka inscriptions. The Girnar copy of the edicts consists of fourteen tablets. In the present inscription, each line of which contains on an average about 52 letters, the first tablet is entire, and occupies four lines and a quarter. The second, of four lines, has lost about twelve letters towards the end in each line.

The

third extends over three lines and a quarter, but of these nearly one half of each line is effaced. Each

[JULY, 5 1872.

be a mistake either of the original engraver or of the transcriber.

The ninth tablet consists of six

lines all mutilated ; about one-third only or a little more in one or two cases, being preserved. The tenth tablet has lost the first halves of the three

lines composing it. The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth Girnar tablets are wanting both in the Dhauli inscription and in the present one. The four

teenth however, occurs here though apparently it is wanting at Dhauli; but more than half of each of the two lines of which it consisted is effaced.

The inscriptions in the third and fourth sheets correspond to the separate edicts at Dhauli translat ed by Prinsep and after him by M. Burnouf. The

readings in these have been so unsatisfactory that the discovery of the same or nearly the same edicts at Ganjam cannot but be welcome to all students of Indian Antiquities. But we fear these

sheets will not be of much use in clearing up

of the first five lines of the fourth tablet has lost

the difficulties. The letters in them are in many

one half, while the sixth and seventh have lost more, and in the eighth line, which ends the tablet, three words are wanting. What remains of the fifth tablet is from two to seven letters in the beginning

cases ill-formed and imperfect; for instance, where we ought to have Dev in a m piye he vam

of each of the seven lines of which it consists, This ends the first sheet. The sixth tablet at the

head of the second sheet is nearly entire, and consists of six lines and three quarters, the seventh occupies two lines, the second of which has got only

fi ha-we have in the third sheet, Dev a lam piye pe vam ha and in the fourth, Dev an a m n a ye he vam an ha. The first d in this latter is unlike the usual d or any other known letter. The small strokes which mark the vowels and dis

to about the end of the line, where he gives the letters annāyecha, which are the final letters of the first line of the next tablet, and consequently do not

tinguish in a few cases one letter from another are not so carefully copied as is desirable. Mr. Grahame says —“The third and fourth inscriptions are re gularly wormeaten away, evidently by rain and at mospheric effects. A good deal of the right hand edges of both has been almost totally obliterated with here and there a letter or the suggestion of one re maining.” The transcript on the third sheet, how ever, is more legible than that on the fourth. And with greater care it is perhaps not impossible to obtain still better transcripts. It is to be hoped the Madras Government, which has already exhibited so

belong to the eighth ; and in the sheet before us they occur at the end of that line also. This may

laudable a zeal in this matter, will again attempt to secure better copies.

twenty letters in the middle, but the first is nearly entire, having lost only some two or three letters. Each of the first three lines of the eighth tablet has

got a few letters in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. The fourth line ought to consist only of eleven letters, of which we have ten. But the

transcriber puts down dots after the tenth letter up

ASIATIC SOCIETIES.

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Proceedings of the Bengal Asiatic Society, April and May 1872. At a meeting of the Bengal Asiatic Society on 3rd April, Mr. Blochmann read a paper on ‘Koch Bihār, Koch Hājo, and Asām in the 16th and 17th centuries according to the Akbarnāmah, the Padis hāhnāmah and the Fathiyah i' Ibriyah, in which he traced the Eastern frontier of Bengal at the time of the Mughuls from the Phaní River, east of Bhaluah and Nawāk'hāli, along the western portion of Tipa rah over Silhat and Látá (or Ládá, as spelt by Mu hammadan historians) to the southern part of Par ganah Karībārí, from where the Brahmáputra form ed the boundary as far as Parganah Bhitarband ; from thence the boundary passed westward to Pāt gáon and the north of Pūrniah. Morang, Koch

Bihār, Koch Hájo, Kāmrūp, and Asām did not be long to the empire under Akbar. During the reign of Jahāngir, Koch Hájo, which coincides with the modern district of Gwalpárá, was conquered and annexed ; and under Sháhjahán Kâmrūp, or lower Asám between Gwalpárá and Gauhátí, was also occupied. Towards the end of

Sháhjahán's reign, the Koch Bihár and Asām Rajahs attacked Koch Hájo, and forced the Imperialists to

withdraw from the province. This repulse was the cause of Mír Jumlah's expedition to Asám in 1662. Mír Jumlah invaded Koch Bihár, recovered Koch Hájo, and occupied Central and Eastern Asām for fourteen months. The most eastern part to which