Indian Palaeography c17.s2: Contacts with India

Indian Palaeography c17.s2

Language: English

c17.s2.3 — 3 parts

Contacts with India

c17.s2.1

(i) The countries of South-east Asia lie on the route of eastern commerce and trade. It is quite natural therefore that the earliest contacts should have been commercial. Of such contact the oldest

evidence comes from Oc-èo in Southern Cambodia, where a number of inscribed stone seals have been found. One such seal is also known from Malaya.¹ These seals were apparently not manufactured locally, but were probably imported from India, as was also the case with other types of seals found in this place. From what part of India could these seals come? The only evidence to decide this question is palaeographical. In Fig. 18 the letter-forms are divided into four groups. (A) This has only two letters, reading *deva*. Both letters have line head-marks. *Da* shows the double-curved form, but the lower curve is rather squat. *Va* is triangular. The medial *e* is a top slant. These features were known only in North India and are also to be seen in the later inscriptions of the Western Kshatrapas of Gujarat and Malwa. In terms of the palaeography of this latter region a date in the third to fourth century A.D. will not be far amiss. But on the basis of only two letters it is wrong to be dogmatic. (B) This group of inscriptions is characterized by notched head-marks. Only two medial vowels are used: the long *ā* has a downward tick attached to the end of its horizontal stroke, and the *anusvāra* is marked by a line.

c17.s2.3.2

The characteristic letters are the broad type of *bha* with a notch in its horizontal bar, *ta* with its two lower arms rounded at the upper end, the round-backed *da*, the triangular *va*, the tripartite *ya* with a loop at the left vertical, and *sha* with a bend at its left side. These features leave hardly any doubt that they belong to a region where the South Indian forms were used along with North Indian letters. This again points to Gujarat. They may be dated in the fifth century A.D. (C) This group has the largest number of seals. The letters are characterized by solid square head-marks. The medial vowels are all northern—the medial *ā* and *o* being top slants, except in *tā* where the medial *ā* is a horizontal stroke. The medial *i* is a left curve, and the medial *ī* has an additional initial prominence. The letter-forms tend to angularity, and they are easily comparable with the first group of the Vākāṭaka inscriptions (Pl. XV. 4). The forms are almost identical except in the case of *a*, which suggests a later date, and *ta* which points to the northern region of the Vākāṭaka dominions. They may be assigned to the fifth century A.D.¹ (D) To the last group belongs a seal reading *Vishṇumitrasya*. Another seal reading *Śrīmagaya* has been doubtfully assigned to this group. These letters have solid triangular head-marks, characteristic of the northern scripts from the fourth century A.D. onwards.

c17.s2.3.3

The forms are rather ornamental, with notches in the lower sides of *va*, *ma* and *sha*. The subscript *ra* is of the southern rounded form. *Ta* is northern, while *ma* has a looped base. The medial *i* is an upward stroke ending in a curl, as seen in the Western Indian inscriptions of the fourth to fifth century A.D. The nearest comparable material comes from Malwa (Pl. IX. 7). They may be dated in the fifth century A.D. The Malayan seal belongs to this group. Thus all these seals point to the region of Gujarat and Malwa between the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. It is natural therefore to suppose that the first contact was established with Western Indian seaports. As the detailed analysis given below will show, it is from this region that the earliest writing style of South-east Asia was derived. It is found again in Indo-China. Two types of writing are known—one represented by the Vo-Canh inscription, and the other, the square-headed type, seen in the inscriptions of Bhadravarman. These styles are quite in keeping with the two styles in use in Malwa between the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A crude local copy of the first type of writing is also seen on a stone inscribed with the Buddhist creed from site no. 1 at Kedah in Malaya, but that inscription must be dated to the end of the fifth century A.D., as it shows the later form of *tha*, and the open-mouthed type of *ṇa*.

c17.s2.4

¹ Chhabra, op. cit., *J.A.S.B.*, 1935, pl. 5.

c17.s2.5

¹ Professor V. V. Mirashi has published similar seal-stamps from the Central Provinces (now Madhya Pradesh) in *J.N.S.I.*, vol. iii, pt. ii, pp. 100–2, two of which read *apramāda* and *jitaṁ bhagavatā* respectively. They are exactly in the same character, and Professor Mirashi attributes them to the fourth century A.D.

c17.s2.6

(ii) From the close of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century A.D. onwards writing spread to most of the regions of South-east Asia. The style which became current at this time bears the closest resemblance to the writings known from the records of the Madharas, Vishṇukuṇḍins, and Pallavas. The earliest examples known are from the *yūpa* inscriptions of Mūlavarman from Borneo, which, though showing ornamental developments and new types of medial vowels, are related to the style of writing known from the Bhadravarman's inscriptions in Indo-China. This relation is established by the simplicity of the long verticals, which generally do not have curved ends. On the other hand, the new developments link the script with the ornamental style of writing seen in almost all the inscriptions of the sixth century A.D. The best-known examples in this style are the inscriptions of Pūrṇavarman from Java, the records of the kings from Fou-nan, the Srideb inscription from Siam, and the inscription of the *Mahānāvika* Buddhagupta from Malaya. These inscriptions borrow not only the Pallava medial vowels but also some of the forms of their letters. It seems that contact with the south-eastern coast of India was greatest at this time. But it is wrong to think that the western coast was totally forgotten. The influence from that coast is traceable in a few letters of this time, and much more so in those of the seventh century A.D. In fact the dated inscriptions of this last century from Fou-nan and Sumatra exemplify a happy mixture of the sixth-century writing of the eastern coast of India and the new features of the seventh century from the western coast. It is strange to note that the Pallava Grantha writing of the seventh century is not traceable in these inscriptions at all. On the other hand, we find a local development towards simplification, first recognizable in the forms of *ka*, *ra* and *la*, which later characterized the growth of the local scripts in South-east Asia. These dated inscriptions are very helpful in relating the undated sixth-century inscriptions with them, and thus indirectly they confirm my dating of the Pallava inscriptions on the basis of the Indian evidence.¹

c17.s2.7

¹ See above, p. 200.

c17.s2.8

(iii) Burma appears to have been in contact by the overland route with Eastern India and by the sea-route with the eastern coast of South India. The Eastern Indian influence is seen in the inscriptions found in Arakan and as far down as Hmawza near Prome. These inscriptions are datable from the seventh century A.D. onwards. The South Indian influence is traceable in the Maunggun gold plates and the Kawgun cave inscription, both of which belong to the sixth century A.D. We may be able to detect another contact if we can decide about the origin of the Pyu writing. The medial vowels used in this writing are exclusively northern, though the medial *i* shows a variation in the local style. Letters such as *u*, *kha*, *ta*, *ya* and *la* suggest influence from Western India, possibly Chālukyan. But the letters *a*, *tha*, and the tripartite form of *ya* point to an earlier date. On the whole it seems that the original writing from which these characters are derived is connected with the source of the Vo-Canh inscription, but in course of time this writing became stylized in this region. The examples that we actually have are seventh-century versions of the original writing.