Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c2: Introductory Note
Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c2
- Language
- English
Introductory Note
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PROFESSOR BÜHLER'S Indische Palaeographie, consisting of 96 pages of letter-press, with a portfolio of 9 plates of alphabetical characters and numerals and 8 tables of explanatory transliteration of them, was published in 1896 as Part 11 of Vol. I. of Dr. Karl J. Trübner's "Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde," or "Encyclopædia of Indo-Aryan Research," which was planned and started by Professor Bühler himself, and was superintended by him up to the time of his death, in April, 1898.
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There was always the intention of issuing the letter-press of the work in English also. The English version was made by Professor Bühler. And his manuscript of it was on its way to the Press at the time of his death. Steps were taken towards having it printed and published under the direction of Professor Kielhorn, who succeeded to the editorial management of the Grundriss. At that time, however, owing partly to the great interruption of business in India caused by the plague, partly to the manner in which the manuscript was written, and partly to a natural difficulty in the way of doing what had been contemplated, namely, of issuing the English version in such a form as to resemble the German original exactly in type and in arrangement page by page, the preparation for publication could not be taken far, and eventually had to be abandoned.
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Feeling, myself, the want of the English version, and knowing that there must be others placed in the same position, in 1902 I made some inquiries and proposals about it. The result, with the consent and help of Professor Kielhorn, was a generous public-spirited response by Dr. Trübner, who, after consultation with Mrs. Bühler, agreed to transfer the copyright of the English version on practically nominal terms, subject to certain conditions as to the method of publication. Dr. Trübner's terms and conditions were accepted in a similar spirit by Colonel Sir Richard Temple, the proprietor of the "Indian Antiquary." And thus it came to me to take the work through the Press, and to arrange the issue of it in its present form as an Appendix to the "Indian Antiquary," Vol. XXXIII, 1904.
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As far as the commencement of the second paragraph of § 16, A, on page 33, the English version has been produced from an advanced proof of 1900, prepared in the circumstances indicated in paragraph 2 above, and revised by Professor Kielhorn. From that point onwards, it has been done from Professor Bühler’s manuscript, written by himself. In order, however, to set the printers fairly at work, it was necessary, because of the very numerous and sometimes rather perplexing abbreviations to which Professor Bühler had had recourse, to furnish them with a fair copy. The copy was, of course, closely compared by me with the original manuscript. And it is hoped that no mistakes have been introduced, in interpreting any of the abbreviations in passages which are not in the German original.
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A perusal of a very few pages of the English work, thus issued, will suffice to shew that it is not altogether a literal rendering of the German original. It is, therefore, sent forth as an English version, not as an actual translation. At the same time, the English version does not in any way supersede the German original. In the first place, as the stones were not preserved, it has not been practicable to issue with the English version the plates and tables which form so important a part of the whole work; however, there is available, for separate purchase, a limited number of copies of the plates and tables, printed off in excess of the number required for issue with the German original. In the second place, in writing his English version, Professor Bühler made here and there certain deviations, sometimes by insertion, sometimes by omission, from the German original. But these deviations, made chiefly in connection with the second edition, published in 1898, of his Indian Studies, No. III, on The Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet, are in points of detail, and do not in any way amount to a revised edition of his Indische Palaeographie.¹ The German original is still the text-book, as much as is the English version. The latter is for the benefit of those, interested in any way whatsoever in the subject, who are not able to utilise the German text.
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¹ A final paragraph on page 96 of the German work mentions “some recent publications, amongst them Dr. Grierson’s examination of the Gayā alphabet of the stone-masons,” which could not be considered then, but were to be noticed in the second edition of Indian Studies, No. III. A treatment of them in that way explains the omission of that final paragraph in Professor Bühler’s English manuscript. And it also, no doubt, accounts for the omission of the Brāhma character for the guttural nasal, *ṅ*, in line 14 of col. VI. of the table on page 11, as compared with the same table on page 12 of the German text, and for the introduction of an inset illustration of that character in an additional remark made on page 35, under § 16, C, (12), in connection with which there is to be taken an observation made on page 14, under § 4, B, (4), (*e*). In a reference to the Gayā alphabet on page 29, in line 5 from the bottom, for *ṇa* read *ṅa*.
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This work of Professor Bühler has brought to a climax, for the present, the palæographic line of Indian research. And it would be impossible to speak in too high terms of the manner in which he has handled the subject, and of the value of the results which he has placed before us. In the palæographic line, however, as also in the historical line, on which it is largely dependent, and, in fact, in every line of Indian research, we are steadily accumulating more facts and better materials, and making substantial progress, every year. I venture, therefore, to draw attention to a few details, which already might now be treated, or at least considered, from other points of view.
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A notable point, regarding which I differ from the opinions of Professor Bühler as expressed in this work, is that of both the relative order and also the actual dates of the varieties of the Kharōshṭhī alphabet, indicated on page 25 under § 10, (3) and (4), which are found in the epigraphic records and on the coins of — (following the order in which, in my opinion, they should properly be placed) — Kanishka and Huvishka, 'Suḍasa-'Soḍāsa and Patika, and Gondophernēs. Kanishka certainly founded the Mālava-Vikrama era, commencing B. C. 58. And in that era there are certainly dated, in addition to records of the times of him and his direct successors, the dated records of the times of 'Suḍasa-'Soḍāsa, Patika, and Gondophernēs, and of Vāsudēva, who was a contemporary of Gondophernēs.²
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² See *J.RAS.* 1905, 232 ff. Regarding Vāsashka, Vāsushka, whom it has not been necessary to mention by name above, see *ibid.* 357 f. It may be observed here that on page 40, line 7 from the bottom, in the words "or of the 4th century of the Seleucid era," and in the corresponding place on page 41, line 10, of the German text, there must be a slip of the pen. The alternative proposed initial date of Kanishka which Professor Bühler had in view, is certainly A. D. 89. And in that year there began the Seleucidan year 401; that is, the first year of the fifth (not fourth) century of that era.
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A similar remark applies to the order and dates of the varieties of the Brāhma or Brāhmī alphabet, indicated on page 32, under § 15, (8, 9), from records of the times of Kanishka, Huvishka, 'Suḍasa-'Soḍāsa, and Vāsudēva.
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As regards the nomenclature of those same varieties of the Kharōshṭhī alphabet, it is now certain that it is erroneous to describe one of them, mentioned there and discussed on page 27 f., as a 'Saka variety. 'Suḍasa-'Soḍāsa and Patika were not 'Sakas, or Sakas, if that should be the correct expression according to the original form of the name.³ None of the Sakas, 'Sakas, ever played a leading historical part in Northern India.
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³ For the real meaning of the inscription P. on the Mathurā lion-capital, which has been supposed to mark them as Sakas, *i. e.* Sakas, see J.RAS. 1904, 703 ff., and 1905, 154 ff.
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In respect of the Ēraṇ coin, mentioned first on page 8, which presents a reversed Brāhmī legend running from right to left, we must not lose sight of the possibility that the explanation is to be found, as has been suggested by Professor Hultzsch in the “Indian Antiquary,” Vol. XXVI, p. 336, in a mistake of the engraver of the die, who, like the die-sinker in the case of a certain coin of Hōlkar of the last century, may have forgotten that he ought to reverse the legend on the die itself. We have one instance of such remissness in ancient times in a coin of Rajula-Rājuvūla, the reverse of which presents a monogram, formed of the Greek letters E and Y, facing in the wrong direction; see Professor Gardner’s Catalogue of the Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India, p. 67, No. 5. And we have another in the legend on a bronze stamp for making seals, where the engraver omitted to reverse the syllable *śrī*; see J.RAS. 1901, 98, plate, No. 9.
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On page 67, under § 29, B, (2), there is a statement about the strongly cursive Kanarese *kh*, which is calculated to be misleading, and on the strength of which some erroneous assertions have already been made.⁴
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⁴ See, for the present, my remarks about them in EI. 6, 77 ff.
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In the plates and tables there are some selections that might have been avoided, and some incorrect details, which are due to two causes:⁵ partly to the fact, the explanation of which has been indicated in some remarks made by me in the “Epigraphia Indica,” Vol. VI, p. 80, that, owing to the nature of the only available materials, the plates have sometimes been based upon reproductions of original records which are not actual facsimiles; partly to the fact, which we learn from the Concluding Remarks on page 102, that some of the details of the plates were not selected and filled in by Professor Bühler himself.
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⁵ For three instances of incorrect details, see some remarks by Professor Kielhorn, in EI. 8, 38, note 1, below the introduction to his edition of the Junāgaḍh inscription, or Girnār Praśasti, of Rudradāman. As instances of the other kind, I may mention the following. Col. IV. of plate VIII. is from a reproduction (IA. 13, 186), which is not an actual facsimile, of a record the authenticity of which is open to question. And col. VII. of the same plate is mostly from a lithograph (IA. 6, 138) which was made, at a time when our methods of dealing with the original records were still decidedly primitive, from a plain uninked estampage, made by myself, the ground of which was painted in by my own hand, with results which cannot exactly be taken as furnishing a thoroughly typical illustration of the Western Chālukya alphabet of the eleventh century A. D.
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And in any revision of the work there would have to be added, in connection with § 20, D, on page 44, a notice of the more recently discovered peculiar variety of the southern alphabet which is illustrated in the Mayidavōlu plates of the Pallava king Siva-Skandavarman and the Koṇḍamudi plates of Jayavarman, edited by Professor Hultzsch in the “Epigraphia Indica,” Vol. VI, pp. 84 ff., 315 ff.
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It would, however, have been contrary to the spirit of the arrangement with Dr. Trübner, to introduce any comments and additions of my own, either in the text or in footnotes. And I do not find it convenient or appropriate to present them here, beyond the extent of the indications given above. Anything of that kind must be left for other occasions.
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My editorial functions in the issue of this English version of Professor Bühler's work have thus been confined to details of a formal kind : chiefly in the matter of giving more prominence to the titlings of the sections and the divisions of them ; in transferring to a more convenient position, as separated footnotes at the bottom of the pages to which they belong, the notes which in the German original stand massed together at the end of each section ;⁶ and in marking, by figures in square brackets in thick type, the commencement of each page of the German original, as closely as has been found convenient. Following, however, an example set by Professor Bühler himself in his manuscript, I have gone somewhat further still in breaking up some of the very long paragraphs of the original. Following his lead in another direction also, I have endeavoured to present everywhere the correct spelling, as far as it can be ascertained, of all the place-names which occur in the work ; but, in conformity with his practice in this work, without discriminating between the long and the short forms of *e* and *o*. And I have corrected a few obvious mistakes ; for instance, under § 29, A, in line 18 on page 66, I have substituted "Bādāmi" for the "Aihole" (properly Aihoḷe) of the German original and of the manuscript translation.
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⁶ In doing this, I have corrected a few wrong references which came to notice, and have added a very few new references which seemed likely to be of use.
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In § 29, page 65 ff., and anywhere else where the word may occur, I have taken the liberty of substituting the word "Kanarese" for the "*Kāṇara*" of the German original and of the manuscript translation ; and similarly, on page 46, line 4, and page 51, lines 21, 27 f., I have substituted "the Kanarese country" for the "*Kāṇara*" of the original and of the manuscript. The form "*Kāṇara*," with the lingual *ṇ*, is nothing but an imaginative advance upon the official figment "Kānara," with the dental *n*, for which, itself, there is no basis in the Kanarese language, nor any necessity. I had thought at first of using, like the late Rev. Dr. Kittel and some other writers, the original vernacular word "Kannaḍa,"—the source of our conventional "Canara, Kanara," which, however, do not mean the whole of the Kanarese country. And that word, which denotes both the country and its language and also their alphabetical characters, would have been appropriate enough. But I decided eventually on "Kanarese:" partly because, though this term, also, is conventional, it is so well-established, familiar, and definitive; and partly because it was practically used, alongside of the word "Kāṇara," by Professor Bühler himself, in the "Kanaresische" and "Altkanaresische" of the original German work (*e. g.*, page 66, lines 4, 6), and in the "Canarese" and "Old Canarese" of corresponding passages in his English version.
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Except, however, in such details as the above, and in the abolition of the inconvenient abbreviations of which mention has been made on page 2 above, the English version is simply a reproduction of Professor Bühler's manuscript.
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In bringing this somewhat intricate work to a successful issue, I have been greatly indebted to the zeal and ability of Mr. J. S. Foghill, the Head Reader of the Bombay Education Society's Press. But for the extreme care with which he disposed of the first rough proofs before any proof was sent out for revision by me, I should certainly not have been able to take the work through, as has actually been done, on only one proof and a revise of it.
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J. F. FLEET.