Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s4: § 30. — The later Kaliṅga script; Plates VII. and VIII
Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s4
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§ 30. — The later Kaliṅga script; Plates VII. and VIII
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[67] This script has been found hitherto only on the copper-plates of the Gaṅga kings of Kaliṅganagara, the modern Kaliṅgapattanam in Gañjām, which in olden times was the residence of the Ceta king Khāravela and his successors (see page 39 f. above). The dates of these documents run from the year 87 of the Gāṅgeya era. Though its exact beginning has not yet been determined, FLEET has shown that the oldest Gaṅga grants probably belong to the 7th century.²
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² IA. 13, 274; 15, 133.
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The signs of these documents resemble, up to the Gāṅgeya year 183, partly the letters of the Central-Indian script (above, § 28, B) and partly those of the western variety, which exhibits the medial *au*, of the Ajaṇṭā inscriptions (above, § 28, A), and they show only a few peculiar forms. A specimen of the Kaliṅga script of the latter kind has been given in plate VII, col. XIX, from the Chicacole grant of the Gāṅgeya year 148, in which only the Grantha-like *A* (2, XIX), and the *ga* (10, XIX) and *śa* (36, XIX) with curves on the left, differ greatly from the corresponding Valabhī letters. The alphabet of the Acyutapuram plates³ of the Gāṅgeya year 87, which exhibits angular forms with solid box-heads, closely resembles the Central-Indian writing; but its *na* is identical with that of the modern Nāgarī. The Chicacole plates⁴ of the Gāṅgeya year 128 show in general the same type; but they offer the ordinary looped *na* of the north and west, and the looped *ta* of the archaic Grantha (22, XX, ff.). Finally, the Chicacole plates⁵ of the Gāṅgeya year 183 come close to the script of plate VII, col. X; but their *na* is again that of the late Nāgarī, and their medial *ā* mostly stands above the line, as in various northern and also Grantha documents of the 7th and 8th centuries.
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³ EI. 3, 128.
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⁴ IA. 13, 120; compare 15, 131 f.
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⁵ EI. 3, 132.
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In the grants of the 3rd and 4th centuries of the Gāṅgeya era, and in a late undated inscription, the mixture of the characters is much greater, and the same letter is often expressed by greatly differing signs. In plate VIII, col. X, from the Chicacole plates of the Gāṅgeya year 51, that is 251,⁶ and in col. XI, from the Vizagapatam plates of the year 254, and in col. XII, from the Alamanda plates of the year 304, we find a northern *A*, *Ā* (1, 2, X—XII), *I* (3, XI), *U* (5, X), *ka* (44, XI, XII), *kha* (12, XI), *ṅga* (15, X), *ṅka* (15, XII), *ja* (18, XII), *ña* (in *jñā*, 19, X), *ḍa* (22, XII), *ṇa* (24, XI, XII), *dha* (28, 45, XI), *na* (48, X), and *pra* (47, XII). The other letters are of southern origin, and belong partly to the middle Kanarese, partly to the middle Grantha, or are peculiar developments. The restricted space available in plate VIII. has made it impossible to enter all the variants for each letter. But the three different forms of *ja* (18, 46, and 47, X) show how very great the variations are.
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⁶ The words *śata-dvaya* probably have been left out by mistake after *saṁvatsara*.
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Still stronger are the mixture and variations in the Chicacole plates of the Gāṅgeya year 351,⁷ and in the undated grant of Vajrahasta from the 11th century (KIELHORN),⁸ neither of which is represented in our plate. In the first-named document each letter has, according to FLEET, at least two, but sometimes three or four forms. The majority of the signs belong to the southern Nāgarī. But Old-Kanarese and late Grantha signs likewise occur. In Vajrahasta's grant there are, according to KIELHORN'S calculation, 320 Nāgarī letters and 410 southern ones of different types, and each letter again has at least two and sometimes [68] four or more forms. KIELHORN points out that the writer has shown a certain art in the grouping of the variants; and he is no doubt right in hinting that the mixture is due to the vanity of royal scribes, who wished to show that they were acquainted with a number of alphabets. For the same reason. the writer of the Chicacole plates of the Gāṅgeya year 183 has used three different systems of numeral notation in expressing the date (see below, § 34). The kingdom of the Gaṅgas of Kaliṅga lay between the districts in which the Nāgarī and the Kanarese-Telugu scripts were used, and it was not far from the territory of the Grantha. Its population was probably mixed, and used all these scripts,¹ as well as, in earlier times, those employed in the older western and Central-Indian inscriptions. The professional clerks and writers of course had to master all the alphabets.
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⁷ IA. 14, 10 f.; HULTZSCH's undoubtedly correct reading of the date has been adopted by FLEET in his Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 1, part 2, p. 297, note 8, the printed sheets of which I owe to the author's courtesy. FLEET declares this inscription, as well as those represented in plate VIII, cols. X, XII, to be suspicious, — in my opinion, without sufficient reasons.
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⁸ EI. 3, 220.
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¹ The use of northern characters is proved by the Bugaḍa plates, EI. 3, 41; compare also B.ESIP. 53, and plate 22 *b*.