THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

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North; nor have they been neglected, though, with the exception of a few articles (in the Madras Journal) published by Sir W. Elliot, and containing the results of his own researches and those of the late F. W. Ellis, nothing has been, as yet, made public. Colonel Mac k en zie, however, at the beginning of this century, made an immense collection of copies of inscriptions, and to the disinterested labour of Mr. C. P. Brown we owe the existence of copies of this collection, which, though purchased by Government for an enormous sum, had been neglected and suffered to rot from want of a little care.

What remains of the originals, and

all Mr. Brown's copies, are at Madras. Copies of inscriptions collected by Sir W. Elliot in the Canarese country were presented by him to the R. A. Society of London. Of late years General Cunningham has made large collections of copies of inscriptions in the North of India.” Apart from these partial and local collections,

[JULY, 1873.

“It is beyond doubt,” remarks Mr. Burnell, “that the real work of collection and decipher ment of Indian Inscriptions is as yet scarcely begun. Most also of what has already been done will certainly have to be done again.” And, we may add, what has been done under the patronage or at the expense of Government during the last ten or twelve years should demand attention first, for it is the most unsatisfactory. So long as such work is entrusted to amateur photographers and official routine, it is only to be expected that the bulk of it will be unsatis factory and disappointing. Elsewhere in his pamphlet Mr. Burnell re marks “that even the best-known inscrip tions in India have only been copied in the very roughest possible way may not be a generally known fact, but such is the case. The great inscription of Kapur-di-giri (near Peshawur),

which is of surpassing interest, is only known by a badly executed impression on cloth wrongly Mr. Edwin Norris's

an attempt was made about thirty years ago, by

pieced together.

the late Mons. Jacquet, to commence a ‘Corpus' of Indian Inscriptions, and, had not an untimely

wonderful skill and acuteness have restored and

deciphered it, but an estampage (made as below

death interrupted his scheme, much might have

directed) would be still of the greatest value.

been done.”

The Aśoka inscriptions (except that at Girnár, which was properly copied” nearly 30 years ago by General Le Grand Jacob and Professor Westergaard) have been equally neglected; one of these exists (I believe) near Ganjam.t

To this he further adds,-‘A large volume

of photographs of inscriptions from Mysore and Dharwar has been published by Dr. Pigou and Colonel Barr, but unfortunately few of these are

clearly legible, and many seem to be of small value. The book is also very costly. The same remarks hold good of Captain Tripe's photo

graphs of the inscriptions at Tanjore.” To these latter may be added the quarto volume

of “Photographs of Inscriptions in the ancient Canarese Language taken from Stone and Copper

Sāšanas, and photographed for the Govern

These inscriptions are the great fact in early Indian History, and yet our knowledge of them is most imperfect.

“A single instance may show how much curi ous information even trivial inscriptions will give. The temple of Tirukkazhukkunram, some 36 miles S. of Madras, is well known, as few residents in the neighbourhood have not been there to see the kites come and be fed at noon.

ment of Mysore by Major H. Dixon,” contain

ing 151 photographs of inscriptions or parts of inscriptions, on 57 large quarto pages, but many

This curious usage (the temple is now devoted

of them are taken on so small a scale and so badly as to be almost without exception nearly useless. The fact is—photographing inscriptions is a

ed. An inspection of the inscriptions there shows that the temple was once Jaina, and thus

to the worship of Siva) has never been explain. the practice becomes intelligible. However, on

special branch of the art, and requires the use of a proper lens and a special mode of treat

reading Tāranātha's History of Indian Buddhism

ment, of which amateur photographers are generally ignorant: thus the art comes to be blamed through its professors.

there as a famous Buddhist shrine by the name of Pakshitirtha, or (in the Tibetan cor responding name) Bird-convent. This succes

(in Tibetan), I found this temple mentioned

• Even this inscription ought to be copied again: there is more than a suspicion of some errors in the copy here

referred to.—Ed.

+ See Ind. Ant. vol. I. pp. 219, 348,-ED.