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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c11.s3: § 39. — Writers, engravers, and stone-masons

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c11.s3

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§ 39. — Writers, engravers, and stone-masons

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Though the oldest Indian alphabet is a creation of the Brahmanical schoolmen (see above, page 17), and though the instruction in writing has remained even in recent times chiefly in the hands of Brahmans, there are yet indications that professional writers, and perhaps even castes of professional writers, existed already at an early period. The oldest name of these men is *lekhaka*, used in the canon of the Southern Buddhists and the epics (see above, page 5). In the Sāñci inscription, Stūpa I, No. 143,⁵ it is clearly used to designate the profession of the donor; it may, however, be doubted if it means, as I have translated it, "copyist of MSS." or "writer, clerk." In various later inscriptions,⁶ *lekhaka* undoubtedly denotes the person who prepared the documents to be incised on copper or stone. But in the present day a *lekhak* is always a man who copies MSS., and this profession is usually the resource of poor Brahmans, and sometimes of worn-out clerks (Kāyasths, Kārkūns). Such men were, and are, employed also by the Jainas. But many Jaina MSS. have been copied, as their Praśastis show, by monks or novices, and even by nuns. Similarly, we find, among the copyists of the Bauddha MSS. from Nepāl, Bhikṣus, Vajrācāryas and so forth.⁷

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⁵ EI. 2, 339, 372.

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⁶ Compare, e. g., the Pallava grant, EI. 1, 1 ff. (end); F. GI (CII. 3), No. 18 (end), No. 80 (end), and FLEET's remarks in the Index under *lekhaka*.

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⁷ Kashmir Report, 33; RĀJENDRALĀL MITRA, in Gough's Papers, 22; KIELHORN's and PETERSON's Reports on the Search for Sanskrit MSS., passim; and BENDALL's Catalogue of Sanskrit Buddhist MSS. from Nepāl, *passim*.

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Another name of the professional writers, which was used already in the 4th century B.C., is the word *lipikara* or *libikara*, discussed above, page 5. In the Koṣas⁸ it is given as a synonym of *lekhaka*, and in the Vāsavadattā⁹ it means "writer" in general. Aśoka uses it in the 14th rock edict as a designation of his clerks. Similarly, Paḍa, who copied the Siddāpura edicts, calls himself *lipikara*, and in the Sāñci inscription, Stūpa I, No. 49,¹⁰ the donor Subāhita-Gotiputa takes the higher title *rājalipikara*, "a writer of the king." In the earlier times, *lipikara* probably was an equivalent for "clerk."

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⁸ See, e. g., Amarakoṣa, 183, verse 15; Bombay Government edition.

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⁹ HALL's edition, 239.

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¹⁰ EI. 2, 102.

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In a number of Valabhī inscriptions of the 7th and 8th centuries, the writer of the documents, who is usually "the minister for alliances and war" (*saṃdhivigrahādhikṛta*), receives the title *divīrapati* or *divīrapati*, and the simple word *divīra* occurs even earlier in a Central-Indian inscription of A. D. 521-22.¹ *Divīra* or *divira* is the Persian *debīr*, "writer," which probably became domesticated in Western India during the time of the Sassanians, when [95] the trade and intercourse between Persia and India was greatly developed. *Divīra* appears also in the Rājatarangiṇī, and in other Kashmīrian works of the 11th and 12th centuries. Kṣemendra's Lokaprakāśa mentions even various sub-divisions, *gañjadivira*, "bazaar-writers," *grāma-divira*, "village-writers," *nagara-divira*, "town-writers," and *khavāsadivira* (?).²

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¹ F.GI (CII. 3), 122, line 7.

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² IA. 6, 10.

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The two works just mentioned, as well as other contemporaneous ones, designate the writers also by the term *kāyastha*, which first occurs in the Yājñavalkya-Smṛti, 1, 335, and even at present is common in Northern and Eastern India. The Kāyasthas, however, form a strictly separate caste, which, though according to the Brahmanical account it is mixed with Sūdra blood, yet claims a high rank,³ and in reality frequently has possessed a great political influence. In the inscriptions, the Kāyasthas occur since the 8th century, first in the Kaṇasva inscription of A. D. 738-39 from Rājputāna.⁴

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³ COLEBROOKE, Essays, 2, 161, 169 (COWELL); regarding the Kāyastha-Prabhus in Bombay, see Bombay Gazetteer, 13, 1, 87 ff.

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⁴ IA. 19, 55; later, the Kāyasthas occur very often in Gujarāt, IA. 6, 192, No. 1 ff., and in Kaliṅga, EI. 3, 224.

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Other designations of the writers in the inscriptions are *karaṇa*,⁵ *karaṇika*⁶ or more rarely *karanin*,⁷ *śāsanika*⁸ and *dharmalekhin*.⁹ *Karaṇa* is perhaps only a synonym of *kāyastha*,¹⁰ as the law-books mention the Karaṇas as one of the mixed castes. The other terms, among which *karaṇika* has to be rendered, according to KIELHORN, by "writer of legal documents (*karaṇa*)," appear to be merely official titles without any reference to caste. The development of the Indian alphabets, and the invention of new forms of the letters, no doubt is due partly to the Brahmans and the Jaina and Bauddha monks, but much more to the professional writers and to the writer castes. The opinion, according to which the modifications have been introduced by the stone-masons and the engravers of the copper-plates, is less probable, because these persons were not suited for such work by their education and their occupation.¹¹

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⁵ Yājñavalkya, 1, 72; Vaijayantī, 73, 17; 137, 23; compare BRW. under *karaṇa*, 3b.

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⁶ Compare, e. g., EI. 1, 81, 129, 166; IA. 16, 175; 18, 12.

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⁷ Harṣacarita, 227 (Nirṇayasāgar ed.); IA. 12, 121.

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⁸ IA. 20, 315.

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⁹ IA. 16, 208.

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¹⁰ Compare the compound *karaṇakāyastha*, IA. 17, 13; BENDALL, Cat. Skt. Buddh. MSS., 70, No. 1364.

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¹¹ B.ASRWI. 4, 79 f.; B.IS. III.², 40, note; IA. 12, 190.

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As the remarks at the end of many inscriptions show, it was customary to make over a Praśasti or Kāvya, which was to be incised on stone, to a professional writer, who prepared a fair copy, and to set the mason (*sūtradhāra*, *śilākūṭa*, *rūpakāra*, *śilpin*) to work according to the latter.¹² This custom was observed also in a case which fell under my personal observation. The mason received a sheet with the fair copy of the document (the Praśasti of a temple) exactly of the size of a stone on which it was to be incised. He first drew the letters on the stone under the supervision of a Pandit, and then incised them. In some exceptional cases, the authors of the poems assert that they have done the work of the masons,¹³ and in others the masons say that they have made the fair copies of the inscriptions.¹⁴

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¹² Compare, e. g., EI. 1, 45, author, Ratnasiṁha; copyist, Kṣatriya-Kumārapāla; stone-mason, *rūpakāra* Sāmpula· EI. 1, 49; author, Devagaṇa; writer and mason as above: EI. 1, 81; author, Nehila; copyist, Karaṇika Gauḍa Takṣāditya; mason, Somanātha, *taṅkavijñānaśālin*, "expert in the art of incising (letters)": also, analogous remarks in EI. 1, 129, 139, 211, 279, &c.

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¹³ This is stated by the poet Kubja in RICE'S unpublished Tālgund Praśasti — [now edited by RICE, EC. 7, Sk, 176, and by KIELHORN, EI. 8, 31]; — and by Divākarapaṇḍita in the Añjanerī inscription, IA. 12, 127

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¹⁴ Compare IA. 11, 103, 107; 17, 140.

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The statements regarding the preparation of the copper-plate Sāsanas are less accurate and explicit. Usually, the inscriptions mention only the person who drew up or wrote the document. And they mostly name as such either a high official (*amātya*, *sāṁdhivigrahika*, *rahasika*) or a general (*senāpati*, *balādhikṛta*). Occasionally, they assert that the drafting was done by a stone-mason, a *sūtradhāra*¹ or *tvaṣṭā*,² who, however, in reality merely engraved the grant. According to Kalhaṇa,³ the Kashmirian kings kept a special official for this work; he bore the title *paṭṭopādhyāya*, "the teacher (charged with the preparation) of title-deeds," and belonged to the *akṣapaṭala* office, which STEIN believes to be the Accountant-General's Office, while I take it to be the Record Office or Court of Rolls (Daftar).

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¹ IA. 19, 248; J.BBRAS. 13, 4.

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² EI. 3, 158, 250, where it is said that the *tvaṣṭā* Viraṇācārya wrote the grants of Acyutarāya and Veṅkaṭa-rāya, as well as that of Sadāśivarāya dated A. D. 1556.

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³ Rājataraṅgiṇī, V, 397 f. (STEIN).

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The Sāsanas name only rarely, and in late times, the person by whom the plates were engraved (*utkīrṇa*, *unmīlita*). The engravers mentioned are various artisans, a *pītalahāra*, *lohakāra* or *ayaskāra*,⁴ *i. e.*, the Kansār or coppersmith of the present day, a *sūtradhāra*,⁵ "stone-mason," a *hemakāra* or *sunāra*⁶ (probably equivalent to *soṇāra*), "goldsmith," a *śilpin*⁷ or *vijñānika*,⁸ "an artisan." In the Kalinga Sāsanas, we find in their stead an *akṣaśālin*, *ākṣaśālika*, *akhasālin*, or *akhasāle*,⁹ whereby a member of the goldsmith caste, now called Aksāle,¹⁰ is meant.

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⁴ EI. 4, 170; IA. 17, 227, 230, 233.

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⁵ IA. 15, 360.

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⁶ EI. 3, 314; IA. 18, 17.

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⁷ IA. 17, 234.

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⁸ IA. 16, 208; the *lohakāra* Kūke is likewise called *vinānī*, *i. e.* *vijñānika*, IA. 17, 230.

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⁹ IA. 13, 123; 18, 145; EI. 3, 19, 213, and the correction of the translation (p. 21) at the end of the volume.

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¹⁰ BAINES, Imperial Census Report, 2, 8, where the Aksāles of Madras are mentioned. They are found, however, also in the Kanarese districts of the Bombay Presidency.

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Finally, the existence of manuals for clerks and writers must be mentioned. We still possess several works of this kind, among which the Lekhapañcāśikā gives the rules for drafting not only private letters, but also land-grants and the treaties between kings, while a section of Kṣemendra-Vyāsadāsa's Lokaprakāśa shows how the various kinds of bonds, bills of exchange (*huṇḍī*) and so forth ought to be done.¹¹

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¹¹ BHĀṆḌĀRKAR, Report on the Search for Sanskrit MSS., 1882-83, 38; Kashmīr Report, * * * On the Indian writers see also RĀJENDRALĀL MITRA, in Gough's Papers, 16, 133, and BURNELL, in ESIP, 88

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