Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s15.t4: D. — The alphabet of the Pallava Prākrit land-grants; Plate III
Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s15.t4
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D. — The alphabet of the Pallava Prākrit land-grants; Plate III
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The highly cursive writing of the Prākrit land-grants of the Pallava kings Vijayabuddhavarman and Śivaskandavarman from Kāñcī (Conieveram) in the Tamil districts,¹ shows in its *ductus* a certain relationship to the Jaggayyapeta inscriptions. But it is not doubtful that these documents are much later, though it is for the present impossible to fix their dates exactly. The use of Prākrit for official purposes perhaps indicates that they are not later than the first half of the 4th century A. D. The broad *E* (5, XX) with the rudimentary vertical to the right (compare pl. VII, 6, XI ff.), the *ḍa* with a tail in *ṇḍam* (40, XX ; compare pl. VII, 19, IV f.), the subscribed *tha* open on the right in *ttha* (41, XIX ; compare pl. VII, 45, XX), and the constantly looped *o* in *lo* (33, XX ; compare pl. VII, 34, III f., XIII, XVII) point to the later period.
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¹ Compare facsimiles in IA. 9, 100; EI. 1, 1 ff.
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IV. THE NORTHERN ALPHABETS FROM ABOUT A. D. 350.²
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² Preparation of Plates IV, V, and VI : —