[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Archaeology, epigraphy and coins](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy) › [Indian Palaeography](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963) › c8 # Indian Palaeography c8: 1. Introduction Indian Palaeography c8 - **Language:** English ## Contents - [c8.s1 Bibliography](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.s1) — 1 part ### 1. Introduction ### [c8.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.2) THE history of the study of Indian palaeography falls into three definite stages. The first, which covers the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was the period of the discovery of the inscriptions and the decipherment of the scripts used in them.¹ Individual efforts made earlier in this field were co-ordinated with the foundation of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784. The first successful effort at interpretation was made in 1785 by Charles Wilkins, who read the Badal pillar inscription (Dinajpur district, East Pakistan) of the Pāla king Nārāyaṇapāla. In the same year Pandit Radhakant Sharma read the Delhi-Topra pillar inscription of the Chāhamāna king Visaladeva. Later, the discovery of the Maukhari inscriptions from the Barabar Hill caves in Bihar enabled Wilkins to tackle the inscriptions of the Gupta rulers. Still further afield, James Tod collected a large number of inscriptions in Rajasthan, Central India, and Gujarat between 1818 and 1823. These inscriptions, which ranged from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries A.D., were partially read with the help of Yato Jñānachandra. These early efforts received a further impetus when in 1834 Babington prepared a table of letters on the basis of the Sanskrit and Tamil inscriptions discovered at Mamallapuram;² in 1833 Walter Elliot published an elaborate comparative table of the older forms of the Kannada alphabet; and in 1837 Captain H. Harkness compiled his \*Ancient and Modern Alphabets of the Popular Hindu Languages of the Southern Peninsula of India\*. During these years the inscriptions of the Guptas of Northern India and those of the Maitrakas of Valabhi were completely deciphered. In this new venture we may notice the remarkable personality of James Prinsep, who was to bring about a revolutionary change in the decipherment of the still older inscriptions. ### [c8.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.3) ¹ This statement relates only to Brāhmī and Kharoshṭhī inscriptions. The problem of the Indus Script is discussed in Chapter 2. ### [c8.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.4) ² \*J.A.S.B.\*, 1837, pp. 219–20, pl. XIII. ### [c8.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.5) These were the writings seen on the bilingual coins discovered in the north-western regions of India (now in West Pakistan), and in many rock and pillar inscriptions, which later proved to be of the great Mauryan king Aśoka. The story of the decipherment is told by Prinsep himself in his \*Indian Antiquities\*. Up till then these early writings had been supposed to have been based on principles different from those of later Indian scripts. But their decipherment by Prinsep dealt a death-blow to this concept. He was the first man to realize the significance of his success, and accordingly he prepared a chart with the title ‘Modifications of the Sanskrit Alphabet from 543 b.c. to a.d. 1200’, and added a note: ### [c8.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.6) Having thus recovered the complete, and as I consider it, the primeval alphabet of the Indian languages, I have arranged in the accompanying plate the changes each letter has undergone in successive centuries, as deduced from absolute records on copper or stone. The table furnishes a curious species of palaeographic chronometer, by which an ancient monument may be assigned with considerable accuracy to the period at which it was written, even though it possesses no actual date.¹ ### [c8.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.7) ¹ James Prinsep, \*Essays on Indian Antiquities\*, ed. by E. Thomas, London, 1858, p. 39. ### [c8.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.8) With James Prinsep the first stage of Indian palaeography closes and its second stage begins. ### [c8.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.9) From the efforts of these early scholars we have inherited a knowledge of two main writing systems in India. The first was written from left to right, as are all the modern Indian scripts, except Arabic which was later introduced by the Muslims; and the second was written from right to left and was confined mainly to the north-western regions of India for a limited period, roughly from the third century b.c. to the third to fourth century a.d., though in Central Asia it continued to be used till about the eighth century a.d. The term ‘Brāhmī’ has been applied to the first script, as all creation, according to the Indian conception, is from Brahmā, and the second script has been called ‘Kharoshṭhī’ mainly on the evidence of the Chinese sources, but the meaning of this last term is by no means definite. Whether it is connected with \*khara-oshṭha\* (ass-lip), \*khar-post\* (Persian, meaning hide of the ass), \*khar-ustar\* (Persian, meaning ass and camel, implying a caravan of merchants), or the possible Aramaic word \*harūtthā\* (engraving or writing), is difficult to say. It is certain, however, that the name was associated with the script from a very early time. Not satisfied with the real meanings of these terms, already in the first stage scholars began to speculate on the origin of these scripts. Kharoshṭhī was easily connected with the Semitic group because of the direction of writing, but Brāhmī raised an insoluble problem. The early writers, including James Prinsep, were inclined to derive it from the Greek, as this was written from left to right and offered the easiest comparable material.¹ On the basis of the method of the comparison of signs then available, a second theory of the origin of Brāhmī was also mooted, even before the nineteenth century. It was Sir William Jones who first suggested its connexion with Semitic writing. ### [c8.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.10) ¹ Prinsep, op. cit. ii. 42. ### [c8.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.11) As has been said before, Prinsep laid the foundation of the second stage. Indian palaeography became a recognized study, and James Burgess defined it as ‘the study of the gradual modification of alphabets in the course of time’.² To A. C. Burnell goes the credit of producing in 1874 the first book on the subject, \*Elements of South Indian Palaeography (from the 4th to the 14th century A.D.), being an introduction to the study of South Indian inscriptions and manuscripts\*. About this time a Dutch scholar, K. F. Holle, was working in South-east Asia, collecting his materials on the different scripts of that part of the world, and he published in 1877 his \*Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten\*. A similar work was undertaken by Burgess in 1883: ### [c8.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.12) ² \*A.S.W.I.\* iv. 72. ### [c8.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.13) relating to Peninsular India from the Kṛishṇā river to the Vindhya hills, that is, for the Dekhan, Koṅkaṇ and Gujarat . . . representing the characters used in the numerous inscriptions, especially those in the cave temples from the age of Aśoka, 250 B.C., till the end of the eighth century, when the old type of alphabet, founded on the Pāli or Mauryan, was disappearing, the Devanāgarī taking its place over the northern portions of this area, and the Canarese in the south.³ ### [c8.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.14) ³ Ibid., p. 74. ### [c8.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.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. ### [c8.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.16) The main purpose of the scholars in the second stage was to produce as accurately as possible charts of the various writings from the original records, so as to collect at one place all the scripts for the guidance of those who wished to read and interpret them.¹ Hence there was the necessity of acquiring faithful reproductions of the originals. The lack of mechanical processes greatly hindered the work of the early scholars. As late as 1883 Burgess² complains: ### [c8.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.17) ¹ Ojha, \*Bhāratīya Prāchīna Lipimālā\*, 2nd ed., introduction, p. 6. ### [c8.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.18) ² \*A.S.W.I.\* iv. 72. ### [c8.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.19) ‘As applied to Indian inscriptions, comparative palaeography has as yet made but little progress towards scientific accuracy, and much has still to be done before we can use the characters of different inscriptions with full confidence as a safe guide to chronology.’ ### [c8.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.20) Bühler’s work represents the climax of the work carried out by such means, as he says in his concluding remarks: ### [c8.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.21) ‘I have been able to illustrate most of the Indian alphabets by cuttings from facsimiles, instead of hand-drawn signs.’³ ### [c8.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.22) ³ \*Indian Palaeography\*, Eng. tr., p. 102. ### [c8.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.23) Extreme care in copying the original forms was dictated by another motive, which was already foreseen by Prinsep, the motive of dating the ancient record or the monument on which it occurs with the help of palaeography. This was particularly important for Indologists who, in the absence of other means for reconstructing the chronology of ancient India, discovered in palaeography a handy time-scale for that purpose. A change in the letter-forms was for them chiefly important as marking a difference in time. Hence they needed accurate copies of inscriptions belonging to rulers whose chronology was more or less ascertained by other synchronisms, and would then compare the style of writing of these inscriptions in order to date the records of less-known or unknown rulers. It was on this basis that the terminology of the period was evolved. Accordingly, we hear of the scripts of the Mauryas, the Kushāṇas, the Guptas, the Chālukyas, &c. Fleet found this system inaccurate, and he was the first person to propound geographical designations for the scripts. He wrote in his \*Corpus of the Gupta Inscriptions\* of the ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ characters—terms which have persisted till today—and along with Rudolf Hoernle divided the northern characters into ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ varieties. Their main purpose again was to define more accurately the terminology already accepted, so that the differing scripts known from the inscriptions of the same ruler might be better explained. This was a great step forward from the rudimentary conception held in the first stage, when scholars talked only of the different scripts as ends in themselves. Ojha in his work did not realize the significance of this new conception—as he himself writes: ‘The regional differences and time may also produce changes in the letter forms, and accordingly the scripts may be subdivided, but we do not consider this necessary.’¹ Hence in his book he talks only of the Brāhmī, the Gupta, the \*kuṭila\*, the Nāgarī, and other scripts. This conception still persists, and as late as 1951 Dr. T. Vimalananda, in his thesis (University of London), \*Epigraphy and Palaeography of Ceylon down to 10th century A.D.\*, talks of the ‘dead’ \*Brāhmī lipi\* as if it had no relation with the later scripts. Bühler ranked with Fleet and Hoernle, and in his work advanced a further stage in the interpretation of Indian palaeography. He accepted the evolutionary character of Indian scripts and further analysed their regional and chronological variations. But his main contribution lay in realizing the influence of the pen and the stylus, though unfortunately he could not work out in detail the way in which this technical difference resulted in the creation of new forms. He was, after all, a scholar of the nineteenth century, when little attention had been paid to the technological problems involved in writing. For scholars of that period the outward forms were ends in themselves, and their analysis and classification was the best that they could hope for. This was the reason why great stress was laid on the accurate copying of each and every letter occurring in different inscriptions. However, Bühler and Hoernle both realized the mistake of this method when applied to manuscripts, and they gave another time-scale for dating them. ### [c8.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.24) ¹ Ojha, op. cit., p. 60. ### [c8.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.25) For all these palaeographers, the occurrence of one or the other form connoted relationship in time, and they hardly concerned themselves with discovering any principle underlying the development of the characters. On this question their conception was very vague. Thus, on the 'northern alphabets', Bühler writes: ### [c8.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.26) Their origin is to be found in the cursive forms, which first appear in the addition to the Aśoka edict VI of Dhauli, and in a number of signs of the Kālsī version, and later are found, occasionally or constantly, in some of the Jaina votive inscriptions of the Kuṣāṇa period. Their general type is that of a cursive alphabet with signs reduced at the top to the same height, and made throughout, as much as possible, equal in breadth. As the occurrence of ancient MSS. and various peculiarities of the letters, such as the formation of wedges out of the \*serifs\* at the ends of the verticals, clearly prove, they were always written with a pen or a brush and ink.¹ ### [c8.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.27) ¹ \*Indian Palaeography\*, Eng. tr., p. 45. ### [c8.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.28) In this quotation there are four concepts; the idea of cursive forms, the equalization of the height, the formation of the wedges, and the notion of 'serifs' at the ends of the verticals. What part these different concepts played in the creation of the forms is not explained at all. We generally hear of the cursive forms resulting from the motive of quick writing. Surely this motive of saving time alone did not result in producing the great number of writing styles in India? The writings seen in the records of the Ikshvākus, the later Pallavas, the Chālukyas, and Harshavardhana can hardly be said to be cursive forms, but rather they are florid in the highest degree. The word 'cursive' has been used loosely by the palaeographers. We must distinguish between cursive writing, which is natural in a handwritten document, and the forms of the letters, which are the result of various technical processes used in a particular tradition. The forms must conform to this tradition and all changes in them must be accepted in that tradition. The wedges or the serifs are not something new, imposed from outside, but result in the very process of creating the accepted forms. The change is due to the tool, and not to the motive of cursive writing. Once a form is created, its later development follows the rules of general art. ### [c8.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.29) As this conception is not to be found in the palaeographic writings of that time, the terms used in them remained undefined. One can, however, usually infer the sense in which they were used. Such terms as 'wedges', 'serifs', or 'block-heads', generally implied only outward shapes, with no intimate relation to the actual forms of the letters. It was this wrong conception which misled Bühler into seeing the existence of the serif in some letters of the Aśokan edicts.¹ On the other hand, Ojha seems to have attached no importance at all to the occurrence of these block-heads, wedges, serifs, &c. It appears that the terms were borrowed from outside, and without any due consideration were applied to Indian palaeography. One such new term used by Dr. Vimalananda in his thesis is 'uncial', borrowed directly from Greek palaeography and made the basis of classification over and above the cursive forms in his introduction, but he himself hardly applied it in his main description of the characters. ### [c8.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.30) ¹ \*Indian Palaeography\*, Eng. tr., p. 34. ### [c8.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.31) From these palaeographers we have inherited large numbers of charts illustrating different characters, elaborate descriptions of the different forms of letters, and information about the time when such forms first appear in writing. It is from the accurate recording of this that the date of an epigraph is determined. Bühler went a step further in tracing the origin and development of the regional scripts. He divided even Aśokan Brāhmī into northern and southern groups and talked of a separate 'Drāviḍī' script, especially in connexion with the Bhattiprolu inscriptions. This classification has been accepted until now, and Dr. Vimalananda in his thesis took it for granted. But C. S. Upasak, in his detailed study of Mauryan Brāhmī, has for the first time challenged the validity of such a classification. His method rests again on the formal comparison of the signs, but by his detailed analysis he has found that no particular forms are exclusive to the northern or the southern areas. ### [c8.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.32) For the later regional scripts Ojha adopted the modern names, while Bühler worked out his own system based on the minute classification of the forms. Alberuni's description² of the several Indian writings in the tenth century A.D. was also analysed, but Bühler found it hard to reconcile the various systems given by Alberuni with his own classification. He also quotes from \*Lalitavistara\*, which enumerates sixty-four scripts, and from two Jaina works, \*Samavāyāṅga Sūtra\* and \*Paṇṇāvaṇā Sūtra\*, and rightly says that the fantastic description given by them is hardly consistent with the available evidence. ### [c8.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.33) ² See below, p. 112. ### [c8.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.34) The most important contribution of this period was the discussion of the origin of the Brāhmī and the Kharoshṭhī scripts. This question was treated by the same method of the formal comparison of signs as was used in the description of the Indian scripts themselves. Bühler, in his work \*On the Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet\*, sums up the views of the earlier scholars on both these scripts. While his conclusion on Kharoshṭhī has been usually accepted, the problem of Brāhmī still remains controversial. Bühler sought to meet opposing arguments by propounding the theory that Brāhmī also was originally written from right to left, relying mainly on the doubtful evidence of a faulty coin from Eran.¹ This contention has been further supported by D. C. Sircar,² on the evidence of the Duwe Gala cave inscription from Ceylon, and David Diringer³ says that the Yerragudi minor rock edict 'leaves no doubt that the \*boustrophedon\* style was known in the time of Aśoka'. All these examples are quoted to establish a closer link on the formal basis between Brāhmī and one of the Semitic group of alphabets. But D. C. Sircar concludes: 'This fact \[i.e. writing from right to left\] again connects the Brāhmī alphabet with the prehistoric writing of the Indus Valley from which it was undoubtedly derived.' It was Cunningham who first suggested that Brāhmī was to be derived from some pictographic writing in India. Since the discovery of the Indus Valley Script this suggestion has been supported by several scholars. Hunter claims to have worked out the vowel notation in the Indus Valley and connects it with that of Brāhmī. But the gap between the destruction of the Indus Valley civilization and the first appearance of the Brāhmī inscriptions has led many scholars to view this suggestion with doubt. However, Ojha alone has analysed the literary sources and tried to establish the existence of the concepts of vowels and consonants and even the whole Indian phonological system much earlier than their first appearance in the written records now available to us. He maintains that this system was the invention of the Aryans in India and that Brāhmī, as the very name suggests, is the outward expression of this system. This view of Ojha has been recently summarized by Raj Bali Pandey,¹ who explains the absence of specimens of writing before the fifth century B.C. in India by maintaining that ‘early Brahmanical literature and books were written on leaves, birch-bark and later on hand-made paper. Such frail and perishable materials could not be preserved for a long time’.² This statement is contradicted by the well-known evidence that the sacred literature of the Aryans was not committed to writing but passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. ### [c8.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.35) ¹ See below, p. 61. ### [c8.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.36) ² \*Select Inscriptions\*, Calcutta, 1942, p. 233, n. 1. ### [c8.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.37) ³ \*The Alphabet\*, London, 1947, p. 339. ### [c8.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.38) ¹ \*Indian Palaeography\*, pt. I, Banaras, 1952, chapter I. ### [c8.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.39) ² Ibid., p. 15. ### [c8.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.40) The third stage in the study of Indian palaeography begins from the close of the nineteenth century, when the Government of India started to issue regular volumes of \*Epigraphia Indica\*. In these journals every inscription edited has some introductory paragraphs dealing with its palaeography. A vast amount of comparative material is thus available for different periods of writing. Similar materials are also available in the epigraphic publications of Ceylon and the countries of South-east Asia. But through all these publications Bühler’s method has remained the standard. I have not been able to detect any new angle of study in any of these writings. On the same principle individual efforts have been made to trace the evolution of the regional scripts and bring them down to modern times. An elaborate application of this principle is seen in C. Sivaramamurti’s \*Indian Epigraphy and South Indian Scripts\*, in which he has tried to put on different pages the changing forms of every letter and thus reduce them into abstract shapes apart from the context in which they appear. The method is no doubt suitable for showing the development of the forms in a museum gallery, and the book is at best a faithful record of that method. Another recent contribution is Raj Bali Pandey’s \*Indian Palaeography\*, which, except for the general chapters on the antiquity and origin of Indian writing and the history of its decipherment, contains nothing on what is understood by the term ‘palaeography’. F. W. Thomas contributed an important article, ‘Brāhmī Script in Central-Asian Sanskrit Manuscripts’, in which he discussed the terminology earlier framed by Hoernle on the basis of formal shapes, and tried to evolve a regional and chronological system from the numerous manuscript materials now available. A comprehensive book on \*The Development of the Kharoṣṭhī Script\* by C. C. Dasgupta was published in 1958, in which the author claims to have made a detailed analysis of the forms known in the inscriptions and the manuscripts. Except for this compilation there is hardly anything original in the book, and even the compilation suffers from the defect of the simplified copying of the original forms. Palaeographical questions, when raised, have often been answered by quotation from other authors, the special problems relating to the Kharoshṭhī script are hardly touched. ### [c8.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.41) My particular approach to the study of Indian palaeography follows from my conception of writing as being a part of culture, and as I would seek to discover a culture through the various traits seen in the available material contents, so it is also possible to search for the different writing styles which can be inferred from the available specimens. The forms in any particular inscription are not ends in themselves. They are the materials for proper study and analysis into one or other tradition following one or other technique. The tradition relates the script to one particular culture, and thus writing becomes a part of the culture, and the difference in technique accounts for the creation of the new forms. As a palaeographer I am in quest of the traditions and the techniques that can better explain the development of the characters in India, and thus pave the way to defining the particular cultures within which the different writing styles operate. The development of their writings is a part of the evolution of those cultures. Hence I do not attach importance to the formal comparison of the signs, though in the absence of any other clue this may be made the basis of preliminary study. However, my method demands that for purposes of comparison one should take into account the total number of signs in any inscription and compare them \*in that context\* with similar assessments of other inscriptions. It is necessary to go beyond the outward forms and look for the inner unity of the letters on the basis of technical analysis and phonological content. The phonology will relate the script to the alphabet and the technique will dictate the nature of forms that must result from it. The study of palaeography is thus an attempt to discover the various styles of writing in any particular culture as it evolved through the centuries. When we go beyond this and act as arbiter to assign one or the other date to an epigraph, we are no longer true to the subject with which we are dealing. But it is precisely with this last objective that palaeography in India has hitherto been studied. From the time that Prinsep realized the great part that Indian palaeography could play in supplying chronological clues to otherwise undatable objects, it has been the aim of the palaeographers to perfect their method and make it as exact a subject as any other science, so as to give infallible dates. But the following pages will show that this is too much to expect from palaeography. Though I have myself not been free from the motive of assigning dates to epigraphs, I fully realize the limitation of the subject, and hence have here tried to discover the various writing styles and through them the cultures to which they rightly belong. My dating of the inscriptions is relative to the styles, and the links that I have tried to establish between them are based on the same principles as those which govern any other trait of a culture. As will be clear from the description of this method,¹ the illustrations given are not exact copies of the originals, but they are the forms of the various styles as I have reconstructed them after examining the different inscriptions. My approach to the question of the origin of the scripts follows from this concept. ### [c8.42](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.42) ¹ See below, pp. 34 and 148. ### Bibliography ### [c8.s1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8.s1.1) BÜHLER, J. G., \*Indian Palaeography\*, Eng. tr. by J. F. Fleet, published as an appendix to the \*Indian Antiquary\*, xxxiii, 1904. BURGESS, J., ‘Palaeography’ in \*A.S.W.I.\*, iv. BURNELL, A. C., \*Elements of South-Indian Palaeography\*, 2nd ed., London, 1878. DASGUPTA, C. C., \*The Development of Kharoṣṭhī Script\*, Calcutta, 1958. HOLLE, K. F., \*Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten\*, 1877. OJHA, G. H., \*Bhāratīya Prāchīna Lipimālā (The Palaeography of India)\*, 2nd ed., Ajmer, 1918. PRINSEP, J., \*Essays on Indian Antiquities\*, ed. by E. Thomas, London, 1858. RAJ BALI PANDEY, \*Indian Palaeography\*, pt. i, Banaras, 1952. SIVARAMAMURTI, C., ‘Indian Epigraphy and South Indian Scripts’, \*Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum\*, Madras, 1952. THOMAS, F. W., ‘Brāhmī Script in Central-Asian Sanskrit Manuscripts’ in \*Asiatica\*, Leipzig, 1954. ## Linked texts (6) - [Bower Manuscript](https://indike.org/pramana/in.med.yoga.bower) — Sanskrit - [Aśoka](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.asoka) - [Samavāyaṃga](https://indike.org/pramana/in.jaina.sveta.anga.4) — Sudharman, Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit - [Gupta](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.north.gupta) - [South Indian Inscriptions](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.south.sii) - [Mamallapuram](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.mamallapuram) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.epigraphy.dani-1963.c8) · Pramāṇa