Indian Palaeography c8.15

c8.15

The study of these scripts was greatly facilitated by the publication of copies of the inscriptions in various specialized journals. In 1877 Cunningham published the *Inscriptions of Aśoka*, and in 1888 J. F. Fleet produced his *Inscriptions of the Guptas and their Contemporaries*. All these materials were utilized, and for the first time in 1894 a comprehensive book on Indian palaeography, called *Prāchīna Lipimālā*, was brought out in Hindi by Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha. Three German scholars also made a special contribution to the study of Indian palaeography in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Rudolf Hoernle thoroughly analysed the Bower MS., and along with Fleet paved the way for the study of the regional scripts in North India. Ernst Hultzsch, by his edition of the *South Indian Inscriptions*, served the cause of the South Indian palaeography in the same manner. But it was left to Johan Georg Bühler to utilize all the materials then known and produce in 1896 the standard work on the subject, *Indische Palaeographie*. Just as Prinsep in the first stage, so Bühler, at the end of the second, summed up the views of the scholars of his time and laid the foundations for the third stage in his monumental work, which has remained to this day the standard book on Indian palaeography.