A variety of bells, tripods, and ornaments of various descriptions, occur in casts of metal, and form part of the collection brought to England. These are of a small size, seldom exceeding a few inches in length, although bells sometimes occur much larger; several of them are represented in one of the plates.
The inscriptions engraved on stone, and in characters no longer understood by the people of the country, are innumerable: similar inscriptions engraved on copper have also been found in particular districts. The whole may be classed under the following heads:
1. Inscriptions in the ancient Davanágari character of continental India.
2. Inscriptions in characters which appear to have some connection with the modern Javan, and were probably the characters used by the people of Súnda.
3. Inscriptions in various characters, not appearing to have any immediate connection with either the Davanágari or the Javan characters, and which it has not been practicable to decypher.
4. Inscriptions in the Káwi or ancient Javan character.
Of these the first seem to lay claim to the highest antiquity. The principal inscription of this kind, and indeed the only one of any length, is that found at Brambánan, and noticed by Colonel Mackenzie in his interesting account of the ruins of Brambánan, as a real Hindu Sassanum. The stone, which is now broken into six parts, was originally six feet nine inches long and three feet six wide, in the shape of a tomb-stone, and the whole of one face is covered with characters, which appear to have been very well executed.
Fac-similes of this inscription having been brought to Europe, the characters were immediately recognized by Mr. Wilkins as an ancient form of the Devanágari, in use upon the continent of India, probably about eight or nine centuries since. It is to be regretted, that from the constant exposure of the stone, and the fractures which it has received, the characters are in many parts effaced, so as to render it almost impossible to connect the sentences. No date can be discovered, nor any name which might afford a clue to the object or origin of the inscription. From such detached parts as are legible, it appears to be a record of some grant of honour or riches to the party whose praises it records. A specimen of a sentence from this inscription, of the same size as the original, with the corresponding characters in the modern Devanágari[230], appears in the chapter on Language and Literature.
Similar characters, though apparently somewhat more modern, are found on several images at Sínga Sári, transcripts of some of which will be seen in the plates to this work.
Of the second class are the inscriptions on the Bátu túlis, or engraved stone, standing near the ruins of the ancient capital of Pajajárán, and those found at Kwáli, in the province of Chéribon, to which place it is related that some of the princes of Pajajárán fled on the overthrow of that capital by the Mahomedans. The characters on these inscriptions appear very nearly to resemble each other. The stone at Pajajárán, as far as I could decypher it, with the assistance of the Panambáhan of Súmenap, appears to be a record in praise of a certain Maharája, whose name is not mentioned. One of these at Kwáli, a fac-simile of which is exhibited in the plate, we were enabled to translate as follows: