It describes over 1400 coins, chiefly gold and silver, of this splendid coinage. "In his introduction Mr. Lane-Poole deals with various historical, geographical, and other problems suggested by the coinage, and with difficulties of classification presented by the early imitative issues of the East India company and the French compagnie des Indes." This volume, the fourteenth, completes the cataloguing of all the Muhammadan coins in the museum.--Journal Royal Asiatic Society 1892, p. 425.
INDIAN NUMISMATICS.--Mr. Rodgers, Honorary Numismatist to the government of India, has finished his "Catalogue of the Coins with Persian or Arabic inscriptions in the Lahore museum," and practically finished his "Catalogue of the Coins in the Calcutta museum." His own immense collection has now been purchased by the Punjãb government, and he has nearly completed his catalogue of that.
These catalogues will be of very great importance alike for the numismatic and for the modern history of India.--Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, 1892, p. 425.
NEW VARIETY OF MAURYA INSCRIPTIONS.--Prof. Buhler has made a very careful study of impressions of nine votive inscriptions from the relic-caskets discovered by Mr. Rea in the ruined stupa of Bhattiprolu in the Kistna District (Madras). He has made out their contents, and has arrived at the conclusion that they are written in a new variety of the Southern Maurya or Làt alphabet. Twenty-three letters of these inscriptions agree exactly with those ordinarily used in the edicts of Asoka which have long been held to belong to the first attempts of the Hindus in the art of writing. Four letters are entirely unusual, while the lingual l is introduced, which does not occur in Asoka's inscriptions. Further peculiarities are presented in the notation of the medial and final vowels. The appearance of the letters would indicate that the Bhattiprolu inscriptions probably belong to a period only a few decades later than that of Asoka's edicts. By a comparison of these incriptions with Asoka's edicts, and with the inscriptions of Nâuâgleât, Hathegumplia, Bharhut and Triana, it becomes evident that they hold an intermediate position between the two sets, but are much more nearly related to those of the third century B.C. than those of the second. If this be true, the date of the Bhattiprolu inscription cannot be placed later than 200 B.C., and the inscriptions themselves prove that several distinct varieties of the Southern Maurya alphabet existed during the third century, B.C.
This fact would remove one of the strongest arguments in favor of the theory that writing was introduced into India during the rule of the Maurya dynasty--i.e., the absence of local sorts of letters in which the edicts of Asoka were written in places widely separated, for this may be explained by a desire to imitate as closely as possible the character of the original edict.
If then the Bhattiprolu inscriptions show a system of characters radically different from those of Asoka's edicts and at the same time in all probability coeval with them a strong point is gained for the side of those who are of the opinion that the introduction of writing into India took place centuries before the accession of the Maurya Dynasty. It is a curious fact that of all the anomalous letters in the Bhattiprolu alphabet not one bears any trace to the later alphabets of India, all the characters of which are derived from those of Southern Maurya. The language of these inscriptions is a Prakrit dialect and is closely connected with the literary Pali.--Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, 1892, p. 602.
THE INDIAN HELL.--In a number of the Journal Asiatique (Sept., Oct., '92), M. Léon Feer publishes an article entitled "L'Enfer Indien," in which he confines himself to the Buddhist hells, leaving the Brahmanic hells for another study. He avails himself of all previously printed matter and adds new material. His object is to group together and classify all the ideas on infernal punishments, on the crimes for which they are inflicted and their duration. There are separate chapters on: (1) the name and number of hells; (2) the eight large hot hells; (3) the attribution of the hells to distinct crimes; (4) the small hells. There are many questions in connection with them which he leaves unsolved. Then come the cold hells: (1) the Chinese hells; (2) Southern hells; (3) the number and names of the cold hells (of both north and south); (4) the duration of one's dwelling in the various hells; (5) on the non-existence of the cold hells; (6) on the period of time spent in all the hells, etc. The main conclusions are, that: All Buddhists recognize eight burning hells, with ascending intensity, surrounded by secondary hells of numbers varying from four to sixteen. Beside those there are eight cold hells, but only in the North, their names being considered in the South as expressing merely the different periods of sojourn in the eighth hell. The number of hells is at least 12, at most 32.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL SURVEY.--The second volume of the new series of the Archaæological Survey of India is devoted to a catalogue of the antiquities and inscriptions in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, compiled by Dr. A. Fuhrer. No part of India, not even the Panjab, is so crowded with historic spots, associated not only with the life and teaching of Buddha, and with the Hindu theogony, but also with the Muhammadan conquest. Most of the ground has already been worked over by Sir A. Cunningham and his assistants; but there are square miles of ruined mounds still almost untouched. We continually hear of finds of ancient coins made by peasants during the rainy season; but the author is careful to point out that what is now wanted is systematic exploration, like that of Mr. Petrie in Egypt. The present volume is based rather upon printed documents than upon original research, though it shows everywhere the traces of personal knowledge. Its object is to carry out the orders of the Government, by placing on record a catalogue of the existing monuments, classified according to their archæological importance, their state of repair, and their custody. It is arranged in the order of administrative divisions and districts; but copious indices enable the student to bring together any particular line of investigation.--Academy, September.
A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT.--Dr. M. Aurel Stein, principal of the Oriental College at Lahore, has now ready for publication the first volume of his critical edition of the Rajatarangini, or Chronicles of the Kings of Kashmir, upon which he has been engaged for some years. This work, which was written by the poet Kalhana in the middle of the twelfth century, is of special interest as being almost the sole example of historical literature in Sanskrit. Hitherto it has only been known
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