Indian Palaeography c14.6

c14.6

*Classification* It is not possible to speak of a uniform Kushāṇa style as applicable throughout their empire during their rule. The inscriptions from Mathura, as analysed on Pl. VIII *a, b*, reveal a variety of styles, and when these are compared with a group of Kanishka inscriptions from Kosam, Sahet-Mahet and Sarnath, the difference is clearly marked. The Kanishka inscription of the year 14 (Pl. VIII. 4) and the Huvishka inscription of the year 33 (Pl. VIII. 6) have features of their own and can be explained only when they are placed side by side with the inscriptions from the Kosam region. The ‘early group’¹ of the inscriptions from Mathura has a greater affinity with the early inscriptions of the Western Kshatrapas than with the Kushāṇa inscriptions from Mathura. The style is further changed in the records of the later Western Kshatrapas, when it received new stimulus from Mathura. This style of the Western Kshatrapas is characteristic of Gujarat and Western Malwa. In Eastern Malwa another ornamental style developed, which reached its highest evolution in the Bijayagadh inscriptions. The two stages of the Western Kshatrapa writing are also marked on the Śātavāhana records of Western Deccan, where a new ornamental Deccani style takes shape. It is this style which influences the characters of the south. On the one hand, its development is traceable through the Banavasi and Maḷavalli inscriptions to those of the Kadambas, and, on the other, through the inscriptions of Amaravati it evolves into the highly ornate style of Nagarjunikonda and Jogeyyapeta. In Madhya Pradesh, which was a backward region, odd inscriptions, showing influences from both the Gangetic Valley and the Deccan, have been found. Lastly, the early Gupta inscriptions are reducible into regions, as they continued the earlier styles in the fourth century A.D.