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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s3.t1: A. — The archaic variety

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s3.t1

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A. — The archaic variety

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[64] The archaic variety of this script is found: — (*a*) In the west, in the inscriptions of the Kadambas of Vaijayantī or Banavāsi (plate VII, cols. XII, XIII), and of the early Calukyas of Vātāpi or Bādāmi, *e.g.* of Kīrtivarman I. and Maṅgaleśa (plate VII, col. XIV), Pulakeśin II., and Vikramāditya I. (sometimes). (*b*) In the east, on the Sālaṅkāyana plates, and on those of the first two Calukyas of Veṅgī, Viṣṇuvardhana I. and Jayasiṁha I. (plate VII, col. XVII).³ The date of the Sālaṅkāyana plates, which used to be assigned to the 4th century,⁴ is uncertain.⁵ The Kadamba grants probably belong partly to the 5th and partly to the 6th centuries; for, Kākusthavarman, who issued the oldest known record, was the contemporary of one of the Imperial Guptas, probably of Samudragupta,⁶ and his descendants all ruled before the overthrow of the Kadamba kingdom by Kīrtivarman I., between A. D. 566-67 and 596-97. The archaic Calukya inscriptions fall between A. D. 578 and about 660.⁷

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³ Compare facsimiles of Sālaṅkāyana inscriptions at B.ESIP. plate 24; IA. 5, 176; EI. 4, 144; of Kadamba inscriptions at IA. 6, 23 ff.; 7, 33 ff.; J.BBRAS. 12, 300; of Western Calukya inscriptions at IA. 6, 72, 75; 8, 44, 237; 9, 100; 10, 58; 19, 58; and of Eastern Calukya inscriptions at B.ESIP. pl. 27.

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⁴ B.ESIP. 16, pl. 1.

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⁵ Fleet, IA. 20, 94.

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⁶ Academy, 1895, 229.

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⁷ See Fleet's dates of the Calukyas, EI. 3, table at p. 2; IA. 20, 95 ff.

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During this period, the characters of the western and eastern documents do not differ much. The alphabet of the Sālaṅkāyana plates⁸ agrees very closely with that of plate VII, col. XIII; and in the first half of the 7th century the letters of the Calukya inscriptions from Vātāpi and from Veṅgi show an almost perfect resemblance.¹ But the more considerable differences between cols. XII. and XIII, which both are derived from grants of the Kadamba Mṛgeśavarman issued within a period of only five years, have to be explained by the assumption that the letters of col. XIII, with which nearly all the other Kadamba inscriptions agree, imitate writing with ink, and those of col. XII. writing with the *stilus*. This explanation is suggested by the thinness of the signs of col. XII, and by the much greater thickness of those in col. XIII, and by the wedges and solid squares at their heads (compare above, § 28, B).

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⁸ B.ESIP. pl. 1.

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¹ Compare also the facsimile at IA. 6, 72, and B.ESI P. pl. 27.

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The letters of the older documents of this period remain very similar to those of the Andhra inscriptions of plate III, the so-called "cave-characters." In the Śālaṅkāyana grant, and in those of the Kadambas Kākusthavarman, Śāntivarman, Mṛgeśavarman and Ravivarman, we find only few, and by no means constant, traces of the development of the later characteristic round forms. Thus, col. XII. no doubt offers rather far advanced signs for *A* and *ra*, but at the same time a more archaic *A*, and the facsimile frequently shows even an angular *ra* with a not very long upward stroke. In the grants of the last Kadamba king Harivarman and in those of the Calukyas between A. D. 578 and 660, the *A*, *Ā*, *ka* and *ra*, characteristic of the next stage of development, occur not rarely, but never constantly. Thus col. XIV, derived from the Bādāmi inscription of Kīrtivarman I. and Maṅgaleśa, has the *ka* closed on the left. But this form is the only one used there, and it never appears on Maṅgaleśa's copper-plate, nor on the Haidarābād plates of his successor Pulakeśin II.² Further, this *ka*, as well as the closed *ra* of 33, col. XV, occur on the Nerūr plates of Pulakeśin II.³ Finally, the Aihoḷe stone inscription, of the time of Pulakeśin II.,⁴ has exclusively the older *ka* and *ra*, but occasionally the later *A* of col. XV. This vacillation indicates that between A. D. 578 and 660, and perhaps even earlier, the round-hand forms of the middle Kanarese alphabet existed, but that they either had not completely displaced the older ones, or that they were not yet considered as really suitable for inscriptions, though the clerks occasionally introduced them by mistake into the official documents (compare above, § 3, page 8).

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² IA. 6, 72.

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³ IA. 8, 44.

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⁴ See the plates at IA. 8, 241; EI. 6, 6.

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Among the other signs, the following may be noted especially:—

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(1) The *ṇa* (plate VII, 21, XII—XIV, XVII) which is never looped, but looks as if it were cursively developed from a looped form similar to that of col. I, ff.

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(2) The *ta*, which keeps the old form of the western inscriptions without a loop in 22, XIII, but shows in cols. XII, XIV, XVII, a cursive development from the looped *ta* of cols. XX—XXIII, which likewise is not rare in Kadamba and Calukya inscriptions of this period.

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(3) The tailed *ḍa* (24, XIV, XVII) agreeing exactly with the western form [65] of *ḍa* (19, IV—IX).

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(4) The *na*, which sometimes has the looped form (26, XIII), and more frequently that without the loop (26, XII, XIV—XVII); the latter being, however, apparently derived from the looped one.

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(5) The very exceptionally looped *ya* (in *yō*, 45, XIV), which thus is identical with the much older northern form.

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(6) The medial vowels: — (*a*) *ū* in *pū* (27, XIII), a cursive substitute for the *ū* of *yū* (32, VI), *cū* (13, IV), &c.; (*b*) the subscript *ṛ* of *kṛ* (8, XII, XVII; 41, XIV), somewhat resembling a northern *ṛ* (which latter actually occurs once on the seal figured in IA. 6, 24, in *Mṛgeśa*), but probably independently derived from a not uncommon *ṛ* in the shape of an unconnected semicircle before *ka*; (*c*) the exceedingly rare *ḷ* of *kḷ* (42, XIV), which, differing from the northern subscript *ḷ* (plate VI, 35, XVII), but agreeing with the northern initial sign of the Cambridge MS., consists merely of a cursive *la*; (*d*) the Mātrā of *e* (in *ṇe*, 21, XII), of *ai* (in *vai*, 13, XII; and *vai*, 35, XIII), and of *o* and *au* (in *thau*, 23, XII), which, except in connection with *le* (see *le*, 34, XII, and *lo*, 34, XIII, XVII), frequently stands at the foot of the consonant; (*e*) the *au* (in *pau*, 27, XII, XIV), the right-hand portion of which invariably and in all southern alphabets consists of a hook, formed by a cursive combination of the second Mātrā with the *ā*-stroke (compare *yau*, plate III, 31, VI).

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