Digital Rare Book:
The Palaeography Of India
By Pandit Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha
First printed at the Sujjan Press - 1894
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Palaeography (UK) or paleography (US; ultimately from Greek: παλαιός, palaiós, "old", and γράφειν, graphein, "to write") is the study of ancient and historical handwriting (that is to say, of the forms and processes of writing, not the textual content of documents). Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of scriptoria.
The discipline is important for understanding, authenticating, and dating ancient texts. However, it cannot in general be used to pinpoint dates with high precision.
The art of writing in India is a feature that developed gradually, as in other areas of the world, by going through the stages of pictographic, ideographic and transitional phases of the phonetic script, which in turn developed into syllabic and alphabetic scripts. In the subcontinent, three scripts like Indus, Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī became prevalent. In addition, Greek and Arabic scripts were also added to the Indian context after their penetration in the early centuries of the common era (CE). The origin and interaction among these scripts is a matter of constant debate. The decipherment and subsequent development of Indus script is also a matter for continuous research and discussion. After an elapse of a few centuries the Kharoṣṭhī script became obsolete; the Greek script in India went through a similar fate and disappeared. But the Brāhmī and Arabic scripts endured for a much longer period. Moreover, there was a change and development in the Brāhmī script which may be traced in time and space through the Maurya, Kuṣāṇa, Gupta and early medieval periods. The present day Nāgarī script is nothing but the developed form of Brāhmī. The Brāhmī is also the mother script of many existing scripts. Legends and inscriptions in Brāhmī are engraved upon leather, wood, terracotta, ivory, stone, copper, bronze, silver and gold. Arabic got an important place, particularly in the royalty, during the medieval period and it provides rich material for history writing.
Most of the available inscriptions and manuscripts written in the above scripts—in languages like Prākrita, Pāḷi, Saṃskṛta, Apabhraṃśa, Tamil and Persian—have been read and exploited for history writing, but numerous inscriptions preserved in different museums still remain undeciphered for lack of competent palaeographic Indologists, as there is a gradual decline in the subcontinent of such disciplines as palaeography, epigraphy and numismatics. The discipline of ancient Indian scripts and the languages they are written needs new scholars who, by adopting traditional palaeographic methods and modern technology, may decipher, study and transcribe the various types of epigraphs and legends still extant today.[22]
The language of the earliest written records, that is, the Edicts of Ashoka, is Prakrit. Besides Prakrit, the Ashokan edicts are also written in Greek and Aramaic. Moreover, all the edicts of Ashoka engraved in the Kharoshthi and Brahmi scripts are in the Prakrit language: thus, originally the language employed in the inscriptions was Prakrit, with Sanskrit adopted at a later stage. Past the period of the Maurya Empire, the use of Prakrit continued in inscriptions for a few more centuries. In north India, Prakrit was replaced by Sanskrit by the end of the 3rd century, while this change took place about a century later in south India. Some of the inscriptions though written in Prakrit, were influenced by Sanskrit and vice versa. The epigraphs of the Kushana kings are found in a mixture of Prakrit and Sanskrit, while the Mathura inscriptions of the time of Sodasa, belonging to the first quarter of the 1st century, contain verses in classical Sanskrit. From the 4th century onwards, the Guptas came to power and made Sanskrit flourish by supporting it in language and literature.
In western India and also in some regions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Prakrit was used till the 4th century, mostly in the Buddhist writings though in a few contemporary records of the Ikshvakus of Nagarjunakonda, Sanskrit was applied. The inscription of Yajna Sri Satakarni (2nd century) from Amaravati is considered to be the earliest so far. The earlier writings (4th century) of Salankayanas of the Telugu region are in Prakrit, while their later records (belonging to the 5th century) are written in Sanskrit. In the Kannada speaking area, inscriptions belonging to later Satavahanas and Chutus were written in Prakrit. From the 4th century onwards, with the rise of the Guptas, Sanskrit became the predominant language of India and continued to be employed in texts and inscriptions of all parts of India along with the regional languages in the subsequent centuries. The copper-plate charters of the Pallavas, the Cholas and the Pandyas documents are written in both Sanskrit and Tamil. Kannada is used in texts dating from about the 5th century and the Halmidi inscription is considered to be the earliest epigraph written in the Kannada language. Inscriptions in Telugu began to appear from the 6th or 7th century. Malayalam made its beginning in writings from the 15th century onwards.
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