Indian Palaeography c16.s1.1

c16.s1.1

THE first systematic study of the *Ancient Inscriptions in Ceylon* began with the publication of a book bearing this title by Dr. Edward Müller in 1883. The later discovery of a large number of further inscriptions led to the issuing of a regular journal, called *Epigraphia Zeylanica*, in imitation of the *Epigraphia Indica*. Every inscription edited in this journal has a paragraph devoted to its script, but generally greater stress is laid on the historical contents of the inscriptions, and on the basis of the available historical clues an attempt is made to identify any ruler mentioned in them, and to fit him into the chronology built up by a study of the traditional history of Ceylon. Sometimes palaeography is used to fix the date of the ruler, but more often the date of an epigraph is determined by the identification of the ruler and his place in the traditional chronology. Wherever an epigraph is dated on its own merits, it is done on the basis of its relation to the writing styles of South India, e.g. the earliest inscriptions of Ceylon have been compared with Aśokan Brāhmī, and it is assumed that they are roughly of the same date, if not earlier, as is suggested by Dr. Vimalananda. This assumption is more probably based on the tacit belief in the traditional story of Aśoka's mission to Ceylon than on the actual analysis of the writing. On the basis of such dates given to the epigraphs Dr. S. Paranavitana drew up a chart, entitled 'Evolution of the Sinhalese script between the fourth and ninth centuries'.¹ The same material was used by Dr. T. Vimalananda for his thesis.² In this thesis four broad chronological divisions are made, under which the changes in the letter-forms are described. The divisions are: (i) 247–3 b.c., (ii) 3 b.c.–a.d. 490, (iii) a.d. 490–703, and (iv) a.d. 703–1073.