Memoirs of the Archæological Survey of India. Dates of the Votive Inscriptions on the Stupas at Sanchi

He writes about the inscriptions on the railing " The date of the colonnade or railing might be determined approximately to belong to the age of Agoka by the alphabetical characters of the inscriptions which are exactly similar to those of the pillar edicts."' About the inscriptions on the gateways of stupa I Cunningham writes " The fact that the gateways are of later date than the colonnade o [...] While the older and the later groups of the Bráhmi inscriptions of the monuments at Sidichi are easily distinguishable the former occurring on the railing of stapas I and II on the pavement slabs of stupa I on the stone relic-box of stupa II and on the pillars unearthed from the site of Temple 40 and the latter on the four magnificent gateways of stupa I on the additional railings attached t [...] 3) is mutilated and that on the western pillar has peeled off ; but the part of the imprecatory inscription still visible above the capital of the eastern pillar shows that the [paritchärtaga]riya kfirakcina the artizans of the five cities " named also in the imprecatory inscription which begins on the southern panel below the capital of the northern pillar of the west gate and ends on the analo [...] Gachheya is evidently derived from gachha " to plae3 in charge of " " to entrust to the etre of " commonly used in the Bengali language and the sentence may be thus translated (' The 4e gates and the raiJiags are entrusted to the oare of the artizans of the five cities)." The monks of Kitkaniiva probably arranged with the artizans of the five neighbouring cities that the latter should maintain [...] The sculptures on the railing of the Bharhut stripa he assigns to the middle of the second century B. C. and those on the gateway to a later date ; the original sculptures on the ground rail of Stupa I! at SaflAi to about the same time ; the railing of Bodh Gaya to the earlier years of the first century B. C. ; the sculptures in the Mailehapuri Cave at LTdayagiri in the upper storey of which the