Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c3.8

c3.8

Indian, and even South-Indian Palæography is hardly a new subject, though much that is really new will, I believe, be found in the following pages, which were originally intended to form part of an introduction to a Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit MSS. in the Palace of Tanjore, now in the press. As, however, I found that that work would necessarily be of considerable size, I have preferred to publish these pages separately. The foundations of Indian Palæography were laid by J. Prinsep some forty years ago2), when he showed that the Indian alphabets then known to him were probably derived from the S. Açoka character which he first deciphered; since then, little or nothing has been done except Sir W. Elliot's lithographic reproduction of the Haḷa Kannaḍa alphabet, at Bombay about 18363). Dr. Babington had already given an old Tamiḻ alphabet4), and Harkness republished both with some unimportant additions5). The materials I have used have been collected by myself during several years, and in very different parts of the country, and are (I have every reason to believe) fairly complete.