Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.s2.20

c9.s2.20

THE above pages will show what epigraphic documents are to be found in S. India; this branch of Sanskrit and S. Indian literature is of evident value, but it is necessary to remark that it will have to be long studied, before appreciable results in restoring the history (in the ordinary sense of the word) of the past can be expected. The inscriptions already known, unfortunately, belong to a few periods and dynasties, and often clear up only a century at the most. Wide gaps follow which at present seems likely to remain so. The historical sense seems hardly to have ever existed in India; and facts, as recorded in these documents, are so much mixed up with mythology and fable, that, without corroboration, they cannot go for much. But it is only from such documents that any real information about the past of S. India can be gathered, and as proof of this, it is sufficient to point out that the inscriptions already studied have completely upset the traditions which used to be accepted as history. That these results can be so far safely accepted, is proved by the corroboration which they find in the Muhammadan historians, and even in the works of early European travellers. It is not too much to expect that a scientific study of these documents will yet lead to larger and more important results.