Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c11.s3.23

c11.s3.23

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