Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s4.9

c8.s4.9

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.