Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s18.31

c7.s18.31

The Sāmāngaḍ and Kaṇheri inscriptions, together with some others of the 9th century,⁵ show the archaic variety of the southern Nāgarī, the fully developed form of which is exhibited in the copper-plates of Kauthem (plate V, col. XVII),⁶ which were incised during the reign of the Cālukya king Vikramāditya V. in A. D. 1009-10. The southern Nāgarī, of the 8th—11th centuries, which differs from its northern sister of the same period chiefly by the want of the small tails slanting to the right from the ends of the verticals, and in general by stiffer forms, besides occurs in numerous inscriptions of the Sīlāhāras and Yādavas from the Marāṭhā country and the Koṅkaṇ, as well as of a Raṭṭa prince from the Belgaum collectorate.⁷ Its latest development during the 13th—16th centuries is found in the inscriptions of the kings of Vijayanagara or Vidyānagara in the Kanarese country.⁸ It still survives in the Bālbodh or Devanāgarī of the Marāṭhā districts, and in Southern India it has produced the so-called Nandināgarī which is still used for MSS.⁹