The True Chronology of Aśokan Pillars

Author(s): John Irwin

Source: Artibus Asiae, Vol. 44, No. 4 (1983), pp. 247-265
Published by: Artibus Asiae Publishers
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 JOHN IRWIN

THE TRUE CHRONOLOGY OF ASOKAN PILLARS

tudents of ancient India have been brought up in the belief that the nation's earliest
sculpturedmonuments- so-called'A'okan' pillars- had been inspiredand erectedby
Aioka, first Buddhistruler of a united India. This belief continues to be perpetuatedup
to the present day by leaders of the Archaeological Survey of India, fully aware that it was
born andnurturedunderthe Britishrajover the last 15o years.From the very firstmoment
of Independence,officialopinion in Indiahas clung tenaciouslyto the old beliefs,reluctant
to think the problem afresh. The first Indian Director - the late N.P. Chakravarty- set
the tone in 1947 by declaringthat 'it is impossible
to suppose that the pillarswere raised
by anyone except Asoka'.1 Twenty years later, the same opinion was repeatedby his
successorA. Ghosh, who insisted that any other conclusion was 'unthinkable'2- a state-
ment apparentlyintendedto silence those independentscholarswho had vaguely mooted
the possibilitythat some of the pillarsmight have been alreadystandingwithout inscrip-
tions before Aioka came to the throne. None, however, had offered, or even dreamtof
the possibilitythat some pillarseventuallybearingAgokaninscriptionshad been standing
with plain shafts before he ruled. This is surprising,for in the first Minor Rock Edict,
at Rapndthand at Sahasrim,attributedto the eleventh year of his reign, Aioka ordered
that his edicts should be engraved on stone pillars if therewerestonepillars (available). In
the seventhPillarEdict, issuedin the 26th year,he makestwo separatereferencesto pillars:
in line 23 saying that for the purpose of propagating his Law (dhamma), he has erected
Pillars of Law (dhammathambani);
and in line 32, that in order that his message should
endure it should be engraved wherever pillars or stone slabs are available. Here it is
importantto recognize that two unrelatedthings are being said: in line 23 that for the
purpose of spreadinghis message he has erected a certaintype of pillar (without saying
how many, or where, or when); and in line 32, that quite apart from those pillars that he
himself has erected, he wants his edicts engraved on stone pillars already existing - by
implication, not erected by himself.
Soon after beginning research in the 196os on the origin and meaning of the so-called
Adokan pillars, I reached the conclusion that there was no rational basis to the claim that
all of them were Aiokan, or even Buddhist monuments, but much evidence to the

1N. P. Chakravarty,'The Rock-edicts of Asoka and some connected problems', AncientIndia,, Bulletin of Archaeologi-
cal Survey of India, no. 4, 1947-48, P. 25. The author added: 'There is no room to doubt that the pillars are Buddhistic
and were therefore set up by Aloka himselfand no other ruler' (ibid, p. 25).
2 A. Ghosh, 'The Pillars of Adoka- Their Purpose', East and West, Is. M. E. O., Rome, Vol. 17, 1967, PP.
273-75.

247

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contrary.3Among the sculptures so mis-attributedwas the great Bull capital (fig. i)
excavatedat Rdmpirva in 1908, which had been characterisedby Sir John Marshall,the
Director of Archaeology at that time, as 'an inferior piece of sculpture',and as 'wholly
alien to the spirit of Indian art'.4
A chance to make my indignation felt came in 1947-48 when, in a junior role as
organisingsecretaryof the British Royal Academy'sgreat Winter Exhibition of TheArt
of IndiaandPakistan(the first major exhibition of Indian art ever held, intended in this
case to celebratethe handing over of power), I was able to use what influenceI could to
ensure that the Bull capitalwas included among loans from India.
Moreover, I was even able to ensure that it had pride of place at the entrance to the
exhibition. A pre-Aiokan attribution was rejected for the catalogueS;but it gave me
pleasure when, on the return of the sculpture to India, it was singled out by the new
Governmentfor an honouredplacein the portico of the President'sPalaceat Delhi, where
it remainsup to the present day - still displayedas an 'A'okan capital'!
A second masterpiecebelonging to the same art historicalcategory,but less honoured
in position, is the SankisdElephant (fig. 2) - now imprisoned behind iron bars at its
originalsite of excavationin I8626, where its qualityeludes the camera(hencemy depend-
ence at fig. 2 on a faded photograph taken at the time of discovery, damaged and
incomplete).
Both the RampfirvdBull and the SankisdElephant are, in my opinion, masterpieces
of underestimatedantiquityand importance.Both sculpturesare unquestionablyof pre-
Aiokan and even pre-Buddhistorigin, as I suggested a decade ago in my Burlington
Magazineseries (see fn. 3, above). Since then, these conclusionshave met with opposition
in the West as well as in India; from Buddhistsas well as non-Buddhists(althoughnone
has stated a case for his opposition). It is only now that public opinion is readyto listen.
A decisive moment of changecoincidedwith the publicationin Berlinof my 1979address
to the Fifth Conferenceof South Asian Archaeologistsin WesternEurope, where I read
a paper offering firm proof that the Allahabad/Praydga(formerly, 'Allahabad-Kosam')
Pillar- shown here in its present-dayform at fig. 3) had been anotherpre-AsokanBull-
pillar like the one found at Rampfirvd(fig. 1)7. From this moment, letters from scholars
in other partsof the world identifyingthemselveswith conclusionsarisingfrom this thesis

3 Those ideas were first publiclyadvancedin my series of Lowell InstituteLectureson 'The Foundationsof Indian
Art' deliveredat the Museumof Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973, and later summarizedin four successiveissues of the
BurlingtonMagaZine,London, vols. i15-118, 1973-76, under the title '"A'okan" Pillars: a reassessmentof the
evidence'.
4 Sir John Marshalland AlfredFoucher,TheMonuments ofSanchi,vol. I, Calcutta,1939,pp. 89-90; and J.H. Marshall,
'ArchaeologicalExplorationin India 1907-08',Journalof RoyalAsiatic Society,London, 1908, esp. p. io88.
5 TheArt of IndiaandPakistan(edited by Leigh Ashton), being the CommemorativeCatalogueof that Exhibition,
compiledjointly by K. de B. Codrington,Basil Gray and John Irwin, London, 195yo.
6 The originalexcavationreportappearsin AlexanderCunningham'sarticleon 'Sankisa',Archaeological SurveyReports
for the period I862-65 (Calcutta1871),vol. I, pp.xl-xli.
7 John Irwin, 'The PraydgaBull pillar: another pre-Aiokan monument?' included in Proceedingsof the Fifth
Conferenceof South Asian Archaeologistsin WesternEuropeunderthe title SouthAsian Archaeology y979,editedby
H. Hdirtel,Dietrich Reimer,Berlin, I981, Part II, pp. 313-340.

248

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begancomingin, andI thenfeltthatthebattleforrecognitionof pre-Aiokanpillarswould
be won. This,I believe,will be reinforcedwhenthesecondpartof myPraydga-pillar thesis
appearslaterthis yearin theJournalof theRoyalAsiaticSociety,London,underthe title
'Originsof thePre-A'okanPillar-cultat Praydga(Allahabad)'8,to be followedby another,
entitled'BuddhismandtheCosmicPillar',now in pressasanofferingto Felicitation Volume
in honourof Professor
Giuseppe Tucci to be editedby Prof.GherardoGnoli for the Istituto
Italianoper il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome, due to be presentedin June, 1984).

Here, I am leavingall that asideto embarkon a differentcourse,which is to offer a

definitivechronologyof thetrueA'okanpillar,discountingthosewe now knowwerepre-
Adokan.In other words our aim is to state clearlythe order and dates of those pillarswe
knowwereboth carvedanderectedby A'oka- whicharethey?The latterquestioncan
be answeredonly afterwe areclearaboutwhichones theyarenot. Theydo not include
thePraydga(Allahabad)pillar,sincewe now knowthatthatmonumenthadbeenstanding
with a plain shaft before A'oka instructedhis mahimitrasto engrave it with his first six
PillarEdicts which were issued in 243B.C.9However,in additionto the latterwere
engravedtwo earlieredicts:the firstof thesehadbeenaddressedby A'oka to the nearest
dharma-mahimitras or 'ministersof morality'locatedat the regionalcapital,Kosambi,
30 km. to the west; the secondwas one of those 'SchismEdicts'first discoveredand
translatedby AlexanderCunningham in 1870, andpublishedin facsimilenine yearslater
in the firsteditionof Inscriptions
of Aloka.loIt is now importantto recognisethatnobody
beforeCunningham hadknownaboutthisinscription- andthe reasonwhy.My inability
to publishan actualphotograph,dependinginsteadon a reproduction of Cunningham's
facsimile(fig.4), hasnothingto do with bureaucratic restrictionsforbiddinga camerain
the Fort: the truth is that even if I had been allowed to take my camera,I could not have
photographedthe inscriptionsatisfactorily,since it is too high and awkwardlyplaced on
the shaftto be takenfromthe groundwithoutspeciallenses.It is likewiseimportantto
know that the height above ground-levelat which the inscriptionnow appearsis not the
originalheight,wich was loweron the shaft.The explanationis thatwhenthe shaftwas
re-erectedin 1837(afterlying for a long periodon the ground),the antiquarians
of the
BengalAsiaticSocietywho hadplannedthe restoration,beingignorantof the religious
function of a cosmic pillarand thinkingof it only as a 'victory column', went out of their
way to re-installit on a specially-designedplinth that it was never meantto have. Up-to-
date knowledge about the ritualfunction of a cosmic pillar tells us that in ancient times
they were erectedas if to appearrisingnakedlyout of the subterraneanWaters,the Cosmic
Ocean of the cosmogony. The presenceof a plinth could only serve as evidence that the
older meaning had been forgotten.

8 John Irwin, 'Origins of the pre-A'okan Pillar cult at Praydga (Allahabad)', since published in the third part of the
1983 volume of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,London.
9 P. H. L. Eggermont, The Chronologyof the reignof Asoka Moriya, Leiden (Brill), 1956, p. 67, and Supplement III.
o10
Alexander Cunningham, Inscriptionsof Asoka, Archaeological Survey of India, Corpusinscriptionum Indicarum,Calcutta,
1879 (The 'Schism Edict' is reproduced in facsimile at Plate XXII under the heading 'Kosambi Edict').

249

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The most importantpoint that transpiresat the presentstage of our thesisis that the
pillarnow turnsout to be thefirstsurviving(so-called)'A'okan'pillar
Praydga/Allahabad
to have been inscribed;as we now know (see fn. 7, above), that it was alreadystanding
with a plainshaftwhen it was engraved.The 'SchismEdict'was in fact the firstpillar
inscriptionof any kind knownto have beenexecuted.Its styleis not trulycalligraphic,
engraverworkingfroma scaffoldor ladder.
but the workof a relativelyinexperienced
At the time the 'SchismEdict'was engraved,the locationof the Prayaga/Allahabad
pillarwas alreadyrecognisedas 'the holiest spot in India',and was veneratedby all
religioussects,as fullydiscussedin mytwo Praydgapapers(seefootnotes7 and8, above).
This spot coincidedwith the Holy Confluenceof two sacredrivers,the Gangi and the
Yamund,which was in turn synonymousin cosmogonicmythwith the Spot at which
Heavenand Earthwere separated'in the beginning'(in illotempore).

The facsimileat fig. 5 shows the openingsectionof the Six PillarEdictsas they appear
on the shaftof the Prayiga/AllahabadPillar.As long ago as 1835, JamesPrinsep(known
as the 'fatherof Indianarchaeology')placedthis facsimileside-by-sidewith facsimilesof
the same section as it appearson the pillarsat Lauriya-Araraj, and
Lauriya-Nandangarh,
Delhi/Topra,noting that the Allahabadversionwas crudein comparisonwith the fine
cuttingof the others.This promptedhim to ask: 'Whydid such carelesslycut letters
featureon a shaftso regularlytaperedandpolished?'The questionis as pertinentto-day
as it was in I8 35 when it was left unanswered.In the meantime,Prinsep'sre-discovery
of the scriptresultedin his sensationalrevelationthatthe authorwas noneotherthanthe
greatAioka- thuslayingthe firstfirmfoundationsfor the studyof ancientIndia.In the
ensuingexcitement,the questionwas put asideandforgotten,neverto be raisedagain-
untilnow, whenwe areat last in a positionto answer.
The answerpresentsitself in the followingway. On everypillarnow knownwith
certaintyto have been both inscribedand erectedby Asoka, the letteringis neat and well-
spaced:the evidencepresentsitselfmostclearlyon the two pillarsraisedto commemorate
Aioka'stour of the BuddhistHoly Spotsin 257 B.C. (figs. 6a & b). In eachcase,the
inscriptionactuallysaysthat Aioka was both the inscriberand the erector.How, then,
do we explainthe conspicuousdifferencebetweenthe letteringof thesetwo inscriptions,
on the one hand,andthe crudenessat Prayga/Allahabad, on the other?
Before trying to answer, it must first be consideredexactly how stone-engraversin
Aioka's time set about their task. We find that there were two alternativemethods,
accordingto whether a shaft was lying horizontallyon the ground beforeerection,or was
alreadystandingas describedin line 32 of the Seventh Pillar Edict.11In the formercase,
the answercan be suppliedby anybodykeeping their eyes open at building sites in India
up to the presentday. I have the recordof many photographs.At fig. 7, for instance,we
see a master-craftsmandetailing a column to be built into a new Jain temple near
Ahmedabad,in Gujarat,where it was taken in I979, without the craftsman'sknowledge,
in orderto illustratehis pose. Squattingis naturalto the Indianphysiqueand living habits.

11E. Hultzsch, Inscriptionsof Asoka, CorpusInscriptionumIndicarum,Oxford, 1925, P- 137.

250

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Figs. 6 a, b A'oka's pillar inscriptions at Rummindei (above) and Nigali Sagar (below), after Fig. 7 A master mason detailing a
Klaus Ludwig Janert, Abstiindeund Schlussvokalverzeichnungen
in Aoka-Inschriften, Verzeichnis der Jain temple north of
Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Supplementband rio, Wiesbaden, 1972 Taken by the author, without th

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 ? &.a ug %
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appearson shaft of Lauriya-Araraj
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Fig. 9 Edict nos. 6 and 7, photographed exactly as seen today on

Delhi-Topra pillar.
(Photo by the author, '1979)

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 1

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showing exactly where Edict no. 6 ends and no. 7 continues at a later date,
in the handsof anotherstonemason.After Janert

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After Janert

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 .
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Fig. The SarnathLion capital(now in the site museum,Sarnath).

I2 Author'sphotograph

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IMP

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Fig. 13 The Schism Edict, found as the only inscription on the

Sdrndthpillar when the stump of the shaft was excavated in
1905

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 ....
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Fig. 14 Drawing of left forelimbof lion on Sdrndthcapital,

contrastedwith a real-lifeanatomicalstudy, by MargaretHall

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 iii~..........

i:i

Fig. I 5 The Lion capital of an A'okan pillar excavated at Rampurvi, Bihir. Fig. I6 Sdfichi Lion capital, bef
CalcuttaMuseum,photographed by the author

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 AOL-

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Fig. 17 The <Schism Edict>, found as the only inscription on the Sdfichi pillar when excavated in 1913

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By sitting astride a column and looking down at his work, the craftsmanachieves
maximumcontrol of the chisel. This is the position traditionallyemployedwhen the lines
of an inscriptionare short; but if the text to be copied is a long one, like the Six Pillar
Edicts, anotherposition has to be sought, becauseafter cutting the first few words, the
whole column would have to be rolled over, in order to bring a fresh surfaceto the top;
and at the end of each line, it would have to be rolled back to the starting-pointfor the
beginning of the next line. For a long text, this is a very unsatisfactorymethod, since it
involves great labour, with at least four rollings for each line, and forty or more for the
usual ten lines - no mean task for an A'okan column weighing some thirty tons!
A simplermethodthereforebecomesdesirable,in orderto reducethe need for frequent
and laboriousrolling. This can be achievedonly by keeping the lines to be copied as short
as possible, to facilitateprogressfrom the end of one line to the next without any rolling
at all. This is exactly what we find in the case of every pillar known to have been both
inscribed and erected with the famous Six Pillar Edicts. The method characteristically
adopted was to arrangethe lay-out of the text on what printersin their jargon call the
'verticalbox' system.In this way, eachedictwas arrangedto faceone of the four directions,
which meant that no shaft would need to be rolled on the ground more than four times.
(An exampleof this lay-out is indicatedin the sketch at fig. 8).
Switching your mind next from a shaft lying on the ground before erection, to one
alreadystanding before it was engraved, the solution would then be the opposite. This
is exactlywhat happenedwhen the Pray ga/AllahabadPillarwas inscribed:there is every
indicationthat the stonemasonhad been working from the shakyfoundationof some kind
of ladderor scaffold, the lines of the text being long, and almost completelycirculating
the shaft, thus minimizingthe number of changes in level.
There is no need to spend more time on this part of my thesis, since it is fully discussed
and illustrated in my 1979 paper (see above, fn. 7). There is, however, one exception to
prove the rule, and here I allude to the Delhi-Toprainscription(figs. 9 and Io). In that
case,the pillarbears- in additionto the famousSix Edicts- an even more famousSeventh,
sometimescalled 'Aioka's Last Testament',becauseit was issued afterthe first Six, in the
last years of Aioka's long reign.
Whereas the first Six had been engraved when the shaft was lying on the ground before
erection, the Seventh was later added to the shaft when already standing. In this case only,
the two methods were separately employed (fig. 9). Having started the Seventh Edict on
the 'vertical box' principle described above, and illustrated here at figs. 8 and o, a sudden
change follows at line 31 where his predecessor had left off, already starting to lose control
of level and uniformity of lettering. Breaking off at that point (fig. Io), he continues the
Seventh Edict by the second method, carrying the remainder of the text right round the
shaft (fig. I1).

In my final remarks, I should like to correct a misjudgement in my 1973 lectures (see above,
fn. 3). Looking at the pillars with a less mature eye, I singled out, as high watermark of
the series, the Sarnath Pillar (fig. 12). That choice I now recant. As I then put it, the great
appeal of the Sarnith Pillar is a timelessquality, which I identified as 'worldly authority

263

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idealised'. To-day, I see no reason to revise that description,since it fits with what we
know of Aioka's political idealism.Yet, the world has since moved on, and many of us
have now become innately suspicious of 'worldly authority idealised', and see it as a
shallow compliment.Brilliantthough the executionof the Sdrndthcapitalundoubtedlyis,
we fall backon seeingit as essentiallyheraldic.The sentimentit expressesis corresponding-
ly public, lacking in 'soul', as a mystic might say. It cannot on that account be placed in
the highest categoryof creativeart, or on equaltermswith such pre-Aiokanmasterpieces
as the Rdmpuirv Bull (fig. i) and the SankisdElephant (fig. 2).
Nobody is likely to doubt that the Sdrndthcapitalis Asokan. In our presentcontext,
the most significant fact to be noted is that it is another of the 'Schism Pillars', as its
inscriptionreveals (fig. I3). Therefore,we now know that it was carvedbefore any lion-
pillar bearingthe Six Pillar Edicts, which were issued in 243 B.C.; it was inscribedat a
time when experiencein stone-engravingwas still minimalin India.
The style of the Sdrndthinscription(fig. I 3) recallseven more forciblyPrinsep'squery
about the Praydga/Allahabadengraving: 'Why such carelesslycut letters on a shaft so
regularlytaperedand polished?'We now know that the SdrndthPillar,in common with
other 'SchismPillars'alreadydiscussed,is among the first pillarsinscribedby Aioka. Far
from markingthe culminationof a truly Alokantradition(as I once supposed),it marked
the beginning. Moreover, as now seems to be clear, it was inaugurated under the tutelage
of craftsmen formerly employed in the Perso-Hellenistictradition of the Achaemenid
dynasty,who had apparentlybeen broughtto Indiaby Asoka especiallyfor that purpose.12
In patronisingthe first pillar to incorporatehis own conception of kingship, Aioka had
brokenawayfrom the older, Indianconceptionsexpressedin pre-Aiokancapitals.It might
even be supposedthat he was impatientof the earliermagico-religiousassociationsof the
brahmanicalpillar-cultbased on worship of Indra as 'king of the gods'. The latter had
come into being when India was basicallytribal or semi-tribal.Now the earliercult was
being challengedby conceptsof imperialsovereigntyAioka had takenfrom the Achaeme-
nid example. Hence, the moustachioedlions of the Sdrndthcapital (fig. 12) belong to a
totally differenttraditionof animalsculpture,not only aesthetically,but also in terms of
anatomicalobservation(fig. 14). The Smrnth Lions cannot be comparedin any sense of
style with the RdmpfirvaBull or the SankisdElephant(figs. I and 2) as repositoriesof the
true Indiangenius of animalart. We cannotescapethe observationthat the SdrndthLions
were first in the series of Lion capitalsAioka was subsequentlyto commission,inscribe,
and erect,terminatingwith the capitalexcavatedclose to the site of the famousBull (fig. I)
at Rampfirva, the Lion now being preserved in Calcutta Museum (fig. I 5).

12I would like at this point to pay belatedacknowledgementto my respectedfriendandcolleague,KarlKhandalawala,

with whom I have sometimesexpresseddifferencesof interpretation,in this case in opposing his view (which on
hindsight appearsto be entirely correct) that the Sdrndthpillar reveals the influencesof foreign (Achaemenid)
influence.I hope this eminentart historianwill now acceptmy personalapology and withdrawal.On this particular
issue I am readyto admitthat he was right,though I reservemy differenceson otherissuesinvolving Agokanpillars.
A furtherissue reflectinghis correctnessis embodiedin the self-styledtitle A'oka used as the openingwordsof many
of his inscriptions Piyadassi),often translatedas 'Beloved of the Gods'. A centuryago, this term was
rightlyrecognisedby (Devdanampiya
the brilliantFrenchIndologistEmile Senart,as borrowedfromearlierAchaemenidinscriptions
in Persia,yet since then ignored by all authoritieswriting on A'oka in English.

264

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Whenallhasbeensaidaboutthe Sdrndth monument,I do not believethatits famouslion
capitalwas the first lion sculpturecarvedon Indiansoil. In contradictionwith other
scholars,I havealwaysfelt thatcreditfor thatachievementshouldgo to carversof the
Vais'li lion-pillar,as arguedin partI of my Burlingtonseriesin 1973(see fn. 3, above).
(I by-pass here what seems to me to be the specious case argued as recently as 1980 -
ostensiblyby an officersigninghimselfas a memberof the ArchaeologicalSurveyof
India.13)A'oka, after packingoff to their Iranianhomelandin 2z58B.C. the Perso-
Hellenistictutorswho hadguidedthe creationof the Sdrndth capital,nextcommissioned
anotherlion capitalin whatwas to markthe beginningof a new Indiantradition.It was
alsoanother'SchismPillar',thistimeerectedat Safichi(fig.16),carvedin a styleveryclose
to the Sdrndthcapitalandclearlymodelledon the latter,perhapswithina few monthsor
a year. Yet, it is not improbablethat Perso-Hellenisticartists would have regardedas
unintelligiblesome featuresof the Sdfichiabacuswith its Indianisedlotus-eatinggeese
(hamsas)previouslyfamiliaron pre-Asokancapitals.In fact,it was only in India,andnever
in Persia,thatgeesewereusedto representthe CosmicWaterswhich,as we learnfrom
othercosmogonictraditions(e.g. as recordedin the Book of Genesis,I, 6-7) dividedthe
Watersabovethe firmamentfromthose below.
It is no surpriseto us that the Sdfichimonumentwas yet another'SchismPillar',
inscribedwhen it was alreadystanding,
and beforethe existenceof any of A'oka's Six-Edict
Pillars.14

13Kalyan Priya Gupta, 'New evidence from Kolhua (Vaisali) Pillar', in Purdatattva,Bulletin of the Archaeological
Society, New Delhi, 1979-80, pp. 145-47, with two pages of plates. Although he signs himself as an officer of the
Archaeological Survey, the author's case is oddly compounded with a mixture of unacknowledged and distorted
plagiarisms, inaccuracies, and absurdities (including the transposition of Prinsep - spelt 'Princep' - into the ISth
century, long before he was born) and interspersed with amateurish archaeological sketches. I cannot afford space
in this context to take it seriously, knowing that his 'new evidence' could not carry weight even with a first-year
archaeological student.
14 It is very much to the credit of H. Cousens, as an officer in the Archaeological Survey of Western India, that he
commented in i900oo:'I think the (Sifichi) Pillar must have been engraved long after it was set up, the pillar simply
offering a suitable surface for it. The lines are slanting and it is not by any means neatly engraved as it would have
been in connection with the setting up of the pillar' (see fig. 17). H. Cousens, ProgressReportof theArchaeologicalSurvey
of WesternIndia, Government of Bombay, for the year ending June, 1900, p. 4. The only point on which disagreement
might now be expressed is in his interposition of the word 'long', since the interval is not likely to have been more
than a few years (if as much).

265

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