Indian Palaeography c15.s7.t1.3

c15.s7.t1.3

(*f*) So far we have been dealing with the square headed Deccani style within the home country of the Vākāṭakas and their successors in the jungles of Chhattīsgarh. Outside this region the Deccani style influenced the writing in the inscriptions of the Gurjaras, the Chālukyas, the Kadambas, the Madharas, the Pallavas, and the Gaṅgas. Unlike the Vākāṭaka inscriptional writing, here we have only solid squares, except in the Pallava records which have a mixture of solid and hollow squares side by side with thick head-lines. Secondly these inscriptions do not show any preference for angularity, which is marked in the later inscriptions of the Vākāṭakas. Hence it is legitimate to infer that this influence reached here quite early. The late fourth or the early fifth century a.d. is the most probable time when such a borrowing could have taken place. This is the first stage of influence. In the second stage we find a borrowing from one dynasty to the other, and in the third place we see a development of the style. Thus these inscriptions fall into three categories: (i) those which show influence directly from the Vākāṭakas, such as the inscriptions of the Kadambas and the Madharas, which may be dated in the late fourth or early fifth century a.d.; (ii) those which borrowed from (i), such as the Kudgere plates of Māndhātṛivarman,¹ the Jirjingi plates of the Gaṅga Indravarman, dated in the (Gaṅga) year 39 (a.d. 535–8), the even later Saṅkheḍa plates of the Gurjara Dadda, dated in the (Kalachuri) year 392 (a.d. 641),² the Yekkeri plates of the time of Pulekeśin II, and the inscriptions of the Pallava Siṁhavarman; (iii) those which show a development of a new style, such as the later inscriptions of the Gaṅgas, dated between the (Gaṅga) years 79 and 183.¹