Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c4.2

c4.2

THAT the art of writing was imported into India is now allowed by most Orientalists who can claim to be heard, but how and when this occurred is by no means clear[^1). The earliest written documents that have been discovered in India are the proclamations of the Buddhist king Piyadasi or Açoka which are written in two different characters; and the silly denunciations of writing in which the Brahmans have always indulged, render it excessively improbable that they had anything to do with the introduction of the art. The inscriptions of Açoka are of about 250 B. C., but it seems probable that writing was practised to a certain extent in Northern India nearly half a century before that period.