A letter from Dr. J. Brandes on the Kerimun inscription
This is a letter from Dr. J. Brandes, dated 13 October 1887, providing his reading and interpretation of the Kerimun (Pasir Panjang) inscription, published posthumously in 1932 after being found among old papers.
Summary
Brandes identifies the inscription as written in Sanskrit using an antique Nagari script and provisionally dates it to between 700 and 900 Saka, based on the limited corpus of Nagari inscriptions known from the Archipelago at that time (p. 21). He supplies a Roman-letter reading and English translation: “The illustrious feet of the illustrious Gautama, the Mahayanist, who did possess an armillary sphere,” noting that golayantra is the Sanskrit term for an armillary sphere and that the inscription’s author, Gautama, was a Mahayanist astronomer (p. 21).
Brandes further explains the honorific usage of cri and padah, drawing parallels to Javanese and Malay royal honorifics, and credits Messrs. Skinner, Ashworth, and Haughton with having first rendered the inscription legible, while noting that the Batavian Society had unsuccessfully attempted to produce a facsimile in 1873–74 (p. 22).