ANCIENT JAVANESE INSCRIPTIONS AT PANATARAN.

By JONATHAN RIGG, Esq.

[IN printing Mr Rigg's "Tour from Sourabaya through Kediri c" we were compelled to omit a portion, (ante Vol. III. p. 245) from not then having the means of giving copies of the inscriptions referred to in it. We are now enabled to present a lithograph of these inscriptions accompanied by the omitted passage. ED.]

It has been above stated that the inscription of a date is seen over the doorway of the small detached stone Chandi or temple (at Panataran) which only of all the group has an interior cell or chamber. Fig. 1 is an accurate copy of this inscription which is cut in relief, as well as of the edging round it, and flowerlike ornament, at beginning and end.

The Widono Kromo Laksono gave it as his opinion that this date reads 1241. Crawfurd, in his Indian Archipelago, says it is 1242 (2nd vol. pages 299, 302,) but he is evidently wrong in the final figure, as it is the same as the first. For the sake of illustration and comparison I will add a few more of these ancient dates, and in the first place the one which I copied, during this trip, from the grave of the Putri Champa at Majapahit (fig. 2.)

This date is also cut in relief on a not very compact trachyte tomb stone which stands over the feet of the princess. There are also two or three lines of writing in ancient characters, now very much worn away and almost illegible. Raffles gives this date as 1320, but here he is clearly mistaken, the second figure is evidently a 2, as appears also from one of the plates in his own work on Java. Soon after making this copy, I met at Modjo Agung, the Widono of that place, and the Patih of the Regent, and they agreed that the date ought to be read 1270.

Here is a copy of a date taken from a stone found in Kediri and published in one of the engravings of Raffles' history of Java. (fig. 3.)

This date is given as 1220.

The following are dates from the ruins of Sukah on the Lauw and copied from Dr Van der Vlis' publication in the 19th vol. of the_Transactions of the Batavian Society. (figs. 4, 5, 6 and 7.)

From the above examples it will be seen that the figures do not always preserve an exact uniformity; there can, however, be no doubt that the initial in each case represents 1. The second figure in the Panataran date, does not occur in this shape in the table prepared by Dr Van der Vlis, still it is the nearest to the figure 2, a dot at the lower part being substituted for the tail towards the right. The second figure at Majapahit is evidently a 2, only not so stiff shaped as in the dates 1220 and 1228, the lower tail being bent up again along the down stroke. Neither of these cases

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ANCIENT JAVANESE INSCRIPTIONS AT PANATARAN.

resembles the 3, and to attempt to make them 4 would bring down the date to the destruction of Majapahit, and the consequent introduction of Mahometanism, when the ancient places of worship fell into disrepute. The third figures of Panataran and Majapahit do not occur in Dr Van der Vlis' paper; in the case of the former, however, some slight resemblance may be traced to the 4 or 8 of the more stiffly and rudely formed characters of Sukah. Neither the 5 nor 9 occurs at Sukah, and probably the third figure at Majapahit is one of these two, as it remembles none of the examples produced; it is totally unlike a 7, as my informants at Modjo Agung would have it.

To return however to our inscription at Panataran. It in all probability represents either 1241 or 1281, a slight discrepancy of small import, in determining the antiquity of the place. The era alluded to will be of course that used in Java, viz., that of Salivahana, which is 78 years behind that of Christ. This is a comparatively modern date, and being only 120 years previous to the destruction of Majapahit must belong to its palmiest days. [Sce Vol. III p. 245, for the rest of the author's remark.]

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STEAM ROUTES THROUGH THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO:-
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ESTABLISHED ROUTES.

I. The Mail Route between England and China.

THE oldest established line of steamers connected with the Indian Archipelago is that which carries the monthly mails between England and China, touching at Pinang and Singapore, and which, from its commencement in 1845, has been in the hands of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. A steamer leaves Southampton on the 20th of each month with the heavy mails and parcels for Alexandria, touching at Gibraltar and Malta, and embarking at the latter place the supplementary mail which leaves London on the 24th of the month and is carried through France to Marseilles, and thence by steamer to Malta. From Alexandria the mail is conveyed across the isthmus to Suez, where a steamer of the P. & O. Company awaits its arrival. The destination of this steamer is Calcutta, touching at Aden and Ceylon. At the latter the mails and passengers for China and the Indian Archipelago are transferred to a steamer, also belonging to the P. & O. Company, which leaves Bombay in time to meet the outward steamer at Point de Galle, and which proceeds to Hongkong, touching at Pinang and Singapore. The homeward VOL. V. AUGUST, 1351.

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