The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.109.2

v2.c16.109.2

The inscription is fourteen feet long and six feet broad, and comprises seventeen lines, each letter being about two inches in length. Owing to its exposed position facing the south-west, and the fragile character of the stone in which it is cut, the record has suffered serious injury in several places; but enough still remains to show that it is perhaps the [17] oldest Indian engraved document that has come down to us. Mr. Sterling first drew the attention of Anglo-Oriental antiquarians to it in his elaborate and interesting essay on Orissa, and pointed out the relation it bore to the character of the Fīrūz and other Lāṭs of Northern India. But the facsimile he published was so very defective that nothing could be made of it. In 1837, Lieutenant M. Kittoe visited the place on three several occasions, and prepared a facsimile, of which a reduced copy, with transcript and a translation, was published by James Prinsep in the sixth volume of his *Journal*. (Plate LVIII). According to Prinsep, “Nothing short of an impression, (and from the nature of the rock, an impression was impossible), could surpass in fidelity Mr. Kittoe’s twice-compared facsimile”, and on the whole the praise was well-deserved. But bearing in mind that the record covers an area of about eighty-four square feet, it is not to be wondered at, should the reading now offered to the public, which has been made out from a plaster cast prepared under the superintendence of Mr. H. H.