Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c11.s3.9

c11.s3.9

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