Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/36

16 No inscription, which can safely be assigned to the 1st century B. C. or A. D., has been found anywhere in North-Eastern India, except at Sārnāth. The records which can be assigned to the 1st century B. C. are very few in number:

(i) Inscription on the upper side of the lower horizontal bar of the stone-railing surrounding the old stūpa in the south chapel of the main shrine. The second half of the inscription only, is of earlier date, the first half belonging to the second century A. D. (not the 3rd or 4th as Messrs. Konow and Marshall imagine). The date of the second half also has not been correctly given. It is impossible to assign it to the 2nd century B. C. The shortening of the verticals in pa and ha, as well as the curvature in the base line of na, indicates that the record must be ssigned to the 1st century B. C.

(ii) "When clearing the south chapel, the top of a stone railing became visible above the floor a short votive inscription on one of the stones, places the erection of the railing in or before the 1st century B.C." Here also the second part of the inscription only can be referred to the first century B.C. This part consists of the word "Parigahetāvaṁ".

(iii) Inscriptions on the pillars of a railing around a votive stūpa. The first of these inscriptions (No. III) probably belongs to the 2nd century B.C. The probable reading is:—Sihāye Sāhijāteyikāye thabho. The second inscription (No. IV) has been very badly preserved. The fac-simile shows:— 1. ...niya Sonade (va).