Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.2

c5.2

UP to about the first century A. D. the only written documents which are of a tolerably certain date, and, thus, of use in S. Indian Palæographical enquiries are the Southern Inscriptions of Açoka. Of these three new examples have been lately discovered²), others (of which the existence has long been known) are found at numerous places in India Proper, (which is north of the Vindhya range), from Girnar in Gujarat, to Jogada Naugam in Ganjam³), the northernmost province of Madras on the Bay of Bengal; but not to the south of the line extending from the one place to the other. What the state of civilization was in the Deccan and Tamiḻ country in the third century B. C. it is impossible to say, but Piyadasi addresses his proclamation to kings in the Peninsula in the same sentence with the Greek sovereigns to whom he appeals⁴). It is therefore most improbable that the South of India was Buddhist at that time, and it is almost certain that it was not Brahmanized. It is possible to show, historically, how the Brahmans gradually supplanted the old Buddhist-Jain civilization of the Peninsula, the earliest historical civilization of which there is any record in that part of India; and the fact that the Vedas of the South are the same as those of the North, proves conclusively that this was done at a time when the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras had been definitely reduced to their present form, or at a time, at all events, not before the Christian era. There is not much historical evidence to prove that there were Brahmans in Southern India before the seventh century A. D., and there is very little to indicate that there were Buddhists or Jains there before that date[^1). The exodus of members of both sects from the favoured North to the unattractive South, was, probably, the result of political events in the former country. The Jains as heretics were most likely driven out by the orthodox Buddhists[^2), and the Brahmans followed some centuries later, owing to the ceaseless conflicts that had disturbed their original friendliness with the Buddhists, and to foreign invasions. In the South they got the mastery perhaps sooner than in the North.