بود برگرفتند و ندانستند که او در انجا نیست از بهر انک عایشه لاغر بود و سبك بس جون عایشه باز امذ دران منزل هیچ کس را ندید مگر صفوان معطل را و او دم دار بود بر اشتر خود نشاندش و بیش سخن نگفت برو تا بنزدیک رسول اورد اورا عبد الله أبى منافق و حسان ثابت و مسطح اثاثه و حمنه دختر جحش که خواهر زینب بود و زینب عروس رسول بود این گروه و مردمانی دیگر در گفت گوی افتادند و عایشه را در زبان گرفتند و گفتند نرست عایشه از صفوان و این دروغ بود و فاش شد این دروغ میان مردمان و عایشه ندانست بس جون بدانست رمجور گشت و بیمار گشت تا خدای تعالی بس سی و هفت روز از امدن رسول بمدینه این ایت بفرستاد * XVII (f. 65a, 11. 9–14; xxiv, v. 14). The same continued— Hasan-i-Thábit's verses (Cf. Ibn Hishám, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 739). وامده است که حسان ثابت بار خواست از عایشه تا بر او در اید از بس انک نابینا شده بود مسروق گفت عایشه را کی دستوری دهی تا در ایذ عایشه گفت اونه عذاب بزرگ بدو رسیده است ای که نه اورا حد زدهاند و نیز گفته اند عذاب بزرگ نا بینای او بود بس حسان در آمد و این بیتها بخواند (شعر) حصان رزان ما تزن بريبة وتصبح غرثان من لحوم الغوافل فان كنت قد قلت التي بلغتكم فلا رفعت سوطى الى انامل و كيف و ودی ماحییت و نصرتی لال رسول الله زين المحافل فان الذي قد قيل ليس بلايط ولكنه قول امری غیر ماحل ART. XVII.-Dr. Bhagvânlâl Indraji's Interpretation of the Mathurȧ Lion Pillar Inscriptions. Edited by G. BÜHLER, Ph.D., LL.D., C.I.E., Hon. Member R.A.S. A LINGERING illness, ending with a premature death, prevented the late Dr. Bhagvânlâl Indrâjî from completing his article on one of his most important discoveries, the inscriptions on the Mathurâ Lion Pillar. What he had written, or rather dictated to his assistant-a transcript as well as Sanskrit and English translations, together with some notes-was sent after his death to England, with the sculpture (now in the British Museum), and made over for publication to the Royal Asiatic Society. With the permission of the Society's Council, I have undertaken to edit these materials, and thus for the last time to perform a task which I have performed more than once for my lamented friend's papers during his lifetime. In doing this I have compared Dr. Bhagvânlâl's transcript first with the originals on the stone, and afterwards again with an excellent paper impression, presented to me by Dr. James Burgess in 1889. The collation has made necessary some alterations in the transcript and in the translation, among which the more important ones have been pointed out in the notes. But I may confidently assert that all really essential points have been fully settled and explained by Dr. Bhagvânlâl, whose great acumen and scholarship are as conspicuous in his interpretation of these inscriptions as in his other epigraphic publications. For convenience's sake I have prefixed an introduction, summarizing the chief results deducible from the inscriptions. The Mathurâ Lion Pillar, or rather Lion Capital, as Dr. Bhagvânlâl more correctly calls it in his notes to the transcript, measures 1 ft. 7 ins. in height and 2 ft. 8 ins. in width, and consists of two lions standing closely joined together, back to back, on a pedestal, a square block of red sandstone forming an oblong 10 ins. square at the top and 11 ins. square at the base, and 1 ft. 8 ins. in height. Above, at the point of the junction of the two backs, there is a square flattened space with a hole in the middle, and there is also a corresponding hole at the bottom. It is thus evident that the sculpture belonged to the upper portion of some pillar, but did not stand quite at the top. And various representations on slabs from the Amaravatî Stûpa leave no doubt as to the exact position of the two lions and as to the nature of the object which they carried. For example, on plate xxxviii. fig. 1 (Burgess, Arch. Rep. South Indian, vol. i.), we have a pillar, surmounted by an architrave on which two lions couchant are placed back to back, and above them rises an enormous Dharmachakra. Similar structures occur ibidem, fig. 6 and on plate xl. figs. 3 and 4. The arrangement seems to have been a very common one, the lions as supporters of the Dharmachakra being symbols of the Buddha, who is often called the lion of the Sâkya race. The place where the pillar was set up seems to have been, according to the inscription H., the Guhavihâra, apparently one of the Buddhist monasteries at Mathurâ, with which town the sculpture is also connected by the name of the Satrap Suḍasa or Soḍâsa. If the exact findspot of the Lion Capital were known, it would be possible to identify the site of the Guhavihâra, which is not mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims. The inscriptions, eighteen in number, are incised all over the bodies of the two animals, and even at the bottom of the block on which they stand. They run in various directions, and their separation and correct arrangement must have been a very difficult task, which Dr. Bhagvânlâl has, however, performed with his often-proved ingenuity and patience. Most of the letters are cut boldly and deeply, but they vary considerably in size, the large ones, which are most frequent, measuring nearly two inches in height, and the smallest ones, e.g. in the inscription H., not quite half-an-inch. The lines sometimes run straight, but occasionally slant downwards towards the left, like those of the Shahbâzgarhî version of Asoka's edicts. The preservation is, on the whole, good, though accidental scratches are not rare, and some characters, especially on the chests of the lions, are half obliterated. The alphabet of the inscriptions is that which used to be called the Bactro-Pali or Ariano-Pali, but which, as Professor Terrien de Lacouperie has shown on the evidence of a passage from the Fa wan shu lin, is identical with the Kharoshthi or Karotthi lipi of the Jaina and Buddhist scriptures. The characters closely agree with those of the Shahbâzgarhi and Mansehra versions of Asoka edicts, as well as with those on the coins of the Indo-Grecian kings. The chief differences are found (1) in the lingual tha, which consists of a vertical stroke with two short horizontal bars, instead of ; (2) in the dental da, which in several cases looks exactly like tra, and seems to be developed from the Shâhbâzgarhî E in divani (Edict iv. 1. 8); (3) in the dental sa, the head of which is invariably open to the left, while in the older documents it is closed by an elongation of the vertical stroke, and thus has the form instead of P; (4) in the medial u, which, S with the sole exception of mu, consists of a loop attached to the end of the vertical strokes; mu has once in muki (A. 11. 1. 8) the Aśoka form, in Śakamunisa (A. 11. 1. 7) the later one; (5) in the position of the medial e, which sometimes is attached to the right of the end of the vertical strokes; (6) in the group spa (A. 11. 1. 8), where we have as on the coins, instead of hor in the Aśoka Edicts. It may also be noted that the upward strokes at the foot of the verticals, which are so common in Aśoka's 1 1 Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. i. P. 58 ff. inscriptions, are rare, and that horizontal base-strokes, which are used only with ja and also with dha in the Mansehra version, occur here, just as on the coins, with other letters. Thus the fifth sign in agramaheshia (A. 1. 1. 2) is . The language is a Prakrit, closely connected with that of the northern Aśoka inscriptions, but showing a leaning towards the Mahârâshṭrî. With the Shâhbâzgarhî dialect it agrees (1) in frequently preserving ra in groups, e.g. in agramaheshia, parigrahe, praḍhavipradeśe, etc.; (2) in the preservation of the three sibilants, sa, sha, and sa, the last of which, however, appears for sa in samana (once in J. perhaps samana), Pishpasria, saspae for saśvate, and in Sakastana, i.e. Śakasthâna; while in pradeśa, sarira, chatudiśasa, agramaheshia, and so forth, the palatal and the lingual duly occur in their proper places; (3) in the use of spa for sva (substitute for śra) in saspae, and perhaps in Pishpasria if the name corresponds to Viśvaśri; and (4) the omission of the aspiration in the third syllable of Sakastana for Śakasthâna, which is found also in other Mathurâ inscriptions (see Epigraphia Indica, vol. i. p. 375). With the Maharashtri agrees (1) the substitution of va for medial pa in chhatrava (pa being preserved only in busaparo); and (2) the frequent elision of medial gutturals, palatals, dentals, and ya, e.g. in Nakaraasa for Nâgarakassa, Kusulaasa for Kusulakasa, veyaudino for regodirṇaḥ, ayariyaṣa for âchâryasya, viyaa for vijaya, puya for pújâ, saspae for saśvate, analogous examples occur, however, also in the literary Pali. Peculiar are the constant substitutions of dental na for lingual na, which is also found in the dialect of Aśoka's Eastern inscriptions, the complete omission of the Anusvâra, which possibly may be graphic, the group shța in Pulishtena, and the curious elision of si in Tachilasa for Tâchhasilassa or Tákshaśilasya, which makes the name of the town agree very closely with the Greek Taxila. The occasional hardening of the media and the softening of the tenues, as in nakaraasa for någarakassa, bhakavata for bhagavanta, niyadido for |