South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

and by an ornamental semicircular arch overhead, springing from the capitals of the columns. Outside these sculptures the Pahlavi inscription is cut into the flat surface of the slab, in a single line down each side and semicircularly above the arch ; it is divided into two unequal portions by a small cross and dash ; the longer portion, in which the bottoms of the letters are turned towards the Cross, extends over three-fourths of the arch and down the side to the left of the observer ; the shorter portion, in which the bottoms of the letters are turned away from the Cross, extends down the side to the right, and, owing to the reversed position of its letters, it can be read from the same point of view as the longer portion which appears as an upper line with the shorter line below it.

The smaller Kôṭṭayam Cross differs in ornamentation, and stands upon a higher pedestal, whose foliage is curved downwards, instead of upwards ; the bird hovers above the Cross, but the sunk panel has no ornamental border, and the arch is pointed. The inscription appears to be identical with that at the Mount, and is similarly situated and divided. The larger Cross in the same church, in addition to the Pahlavi, has also an old Syriac inscription ’ under the sunk panel, and the arch is semicircular.^[1]

The Pahlavi decipherers in 1873-74 had only a single copy of the Pahlavi to guide them, taken from a photograph of the Mount Cross ; they were therefore at liberty to suggest a few amendments of the letters to suit their views of the meaning of the inscription. But now that we have before us three original versions of the Pahlavi inscription, in the shape of two inked estampages of each of two originals and one of the third, we are compelled to adhere strictly to these five impressions wherever they all agree, and to confine our speculations to the several possible readings of the Pahlavi words whose forms are thus so well ascertained.

It has been already noticed that, though the Pahlavi appears to be-arranged in a single line around three sides of the Cross, the inscription is really divided into two unequal portions by a small cross and dash. This dash is developed at Kôṭṭayam into a shape like an hour-glass, or the cipher 8, laid upon its side ; but this can hardly be read as any combination of Pahlavi letters, and is probably only ornamental. If the observer place himself on his own right-hand side of the Cross, he will find it easy to read both portions of the inscription from one point of view, the longer portion as the upper line and the shorter portion as the lower one. This mode of reading is therefore the most probable, and it also best suits the apparent meaning of the sentence.

The inscription is not altogether free from uncertainty, but the most probable reading of the version at the Mount is as follows^[2] :-

TEXT.

1 Mûn ham-ich Meshîkhâ-i avakhshây-i madam-afrâs-îch khâr bûkhto
2 sûr-zây mûn bun dardo devâ.

TRANSLATION.

“ (He) whom the suffering of the selfsame Messiah, the forgiving and upraising, (has) saved, (is) offering^[3] the plea whose origin (was) the agony of this.”

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^[1] [On the accompanying Plate, the letter A marks the inscription on St. Thomas’s Mount ; B1 and B2 the Pahlavi and Syriac inscriptions round the larger Cross at Kôṭṭayam ; and C the inscription round the smaller Kôṭṭayam Cross.─ E.H.]
^[2] The following special peculiarities in transliterating Pahlavi require attention :─ None of the uncircumflexed vowels are expressed in the text except initial a and final o. Italics are used when the letter is expressed by one of a different sound, on is part of a contraction ; thus v is written like p, d like t, final â like mn, and a is part of a contraction. When the word is itself italicised, these special italics, of course, become roman letters.
^[3] Literally ‘ bringing forth.’