Indian Palaeography c15.s1.7

c15.s1.7

A I. *Middle Ganges Valley.* This region includes the greater portion of modern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh but excludes the westerly districts which border on Mathura. Its influence reached as far south as Orissa and the forest regions of the Vindhyan belt. Under the rule of the Imperial Guptas the style of this region was in great favour and it spread into Bengal in the east and Nepal in the north, and exerted considerable influence on the scripts of the westerly regions. The Mehrauli iron pillar inscription of Chandra¹ is entirely in this style, as also is the Udayagiri cave inscription (Fleet,² no. 6) of Chandra Gupta II. In the post-Gupta period the western styles overran this region and ultimately paved the way for the *Nāgarī* script.