Page:The Origin of the Bengali Script.djvu/38

18 2. Upala he ma (ṁtapakhe?) ………

The principal characteristics of the above inscriptions from Sārnāth are:—

(i) total absence of any difference from the forms of the characters of the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. found in North-Western India;

(ii) consequently we find the general shortening of vertical lines, angularisation of curved strokes, and in the case of medial vowel signs, cursiveness of the angular forms of the older Maurya Brāhmī.

Under the above title the inscriptions of the great Kuṣāṇa Kings, Kaṇiṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsudeva are to be considered, the dates in whose inscriptions are generally taken to be Śaka dates. At present two theories are current about the dates used in the inscriptions of the Kuṣāṇa kings mentioned above.

(i) That the dates in the Kuṣāṇa incriptions should be referred to the Mālava-Vikrama era which was established by Kaṇiṣka in the year 57 B.C. The expounders of this theory hold that the inscriptions of the Satraps Śoḍāsa and Rañjuvula fall after those of Kaṇiṣka, Huviṣka and Vāsudeva in the chronological order. This fact cannot, for a moment, be considered to be true, in a paper on Palæography.

(ii) That the dates in the Kuṣāṇa inscriptions should be referred to the Śaka era, which was founded by Kaṇiṣka in the year 78 A.D. In the following pages I have adopted this theory, which was started by Oldenberg