Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c10.s2: 5.2 Translation and Interpretation of Inscriptions
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c10.s2
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5.2 Translation and Interpretation of Inscriptions
c10.s2.1
Ideally, the published edition of an Because inscriptional texts tend, to a greater or lesser degree, to be formulaic and stereotyped, missing or uncertain sections of the relative ease with which they could be forged (Fleet, 211–2). Dozens of cases of forged, spurious, or altered copper plate inscriptions have been authoritatively identified; Fleet’s list (214–23) contains fifty Spurious grants can usually be detected by the presence of various kinds of anomalies and anachronisms: paleographic and orthographic, linguistic and stylistic, historical, or calendrical (Fleet, 202–3 and 209–11). The most obvious mark of a spurious record is paleographic characteristics which are incompatible with the ostensible date of the record. Although paleographic dating is far from a precise technique (see 5.4.1), in many cases the script is so obviously inappropriate as to raise serious doubts, as in the case of a Western Gaṅga charter from Tañjāvur (Tanjore) dated Śaka 169 = A.D. 248, whose script according to Fleet (EI 3, 161) belongs to the tenth century. In some cases the forger may attempt to imitate archaic script forms, but such efforts are usually fairly transparent. Gross incompetence in orthography (though it sometimes appears in legitimate records) may also be an indication of spuriousness, as in the case of the forged Sūnahar grant of Vijayacandra discussed previously, whose orthography is so poor as to render it nearly incomprehensible in places (EI 35, 153–4).
c10.s2.2
Anachronistic linguistic usages or a gross lack of control of the language of the document, as in the aforementioned Sūnahar grant, may also be grounds for suspicion (Fleet, 203), as are peculiarities or inconsistencies of style, such as the use of titles which are inappropriate or unfamiliar for a given ruler, for example, the title *paramabhāgavata* applied to Samudragupta in the Nālandā plate (SI I.270 n. 4). Syntactic inconsistencies which may indicate the copying of passages from other texts are likewise suspicious; for instance, in the same record, the titles of Samudragupta are given in the genitive while his name is in the nominative (SI I.270 n. 3), suggesting that the epithets had been copied onto the spurious grant from a record of one of Samudragupta's successors.
c10.s2.3
Historical anomalies may be so blatant as to prove an inscription to be a forgery, as in the case of four grants purporting to be issued by the legendary king Janamejaya (Fleet, 206 and 219–21). Historical fabrications were, of course, not always so clumsy, but more subtle efforts may also be exposed when, for instance, they provide incorrect or impossible dates for known historical figures.
c10.s2.4
Details of the dating often provide the most reliable grounds for doubting the authenticity of an inscription. Besides historically inadmissible dates of the types already mentioned, weekdays or astronomical data such as eclipses which prove incorrect when checked by calculation are the commonest reason for such suspicions. The incorrect or anachronistic use of particular eras or dating systems similarly provides a clue to a spurious document (see 5.4.3.2).
c10.s2.5
It should be stressed, however, that no one of these defects necessarily proves in and of itself that an inscription is spurious. A date which cannot be verified by calculation is not necessarily unauthentic, as the many varieties and complexities of Indian calendrical reckoning frequently cause unaccountable irregularities; or the irregularity may be simply due to innocent errors in calculation by the original framers of the document (see SIE 226–8, and section 5.4.3.2).¹⁹ It is only when a combination of these suspicious characteristics is present, or when one or more of them are found in blatant form, that an editor can confidently dismiss an inscription as spurious. Thus, while many cases of spurious inscriptions are definite or at least can be established beyond reasonable doubt, there are quite a few records whose authenticity remains a matter of controversy. This tends to be the case particularly among inscriptions of those dynasties for which several definite cases of forgery have been established, thus casting suspicion on other records of the same dynasty. The copper plates of the Western Gaṅgas provide a striking example. They were in years past the subject of a heated controversy between Fleet, who considered many of them forgeries, and Lewis Rice, who maintained their authenticity; and while it is now beyond question that Fleet was correct that at least some of them were spurious, K. V. Ramesh warns in his recent edition of the Western Gaṅga inscriptions that Fleet "was too drastic in condemning outright most of them as forgeries or spurious," and opines that the final decision in some cases may have to be a matter of "intuitive feeling."²⁰
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¹⁹ Conversely, a verifiable date does not necessarily prove that an inscription is genuine, since a correct date from an authentic document may be copied into a forgery; or even, conceivably, the forgers might have gone to the trouble of calculating the correct date. For examples of spurious inscriptions with regular dates, see Kielhorn, IA 24, 1895, 9–10 (= KS II.687–8).
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²⁰ *Inscriptions of the Western Gangas*, xix n. 1.
c10.s2.8
It should be kept in mind, finally, that spurious inscriptions are not necessarily devoid of historical value or interest. Since most of them are genuinely ancient (if not as ancient as they claim to be), they may well contain at least partially valid historical information especially when, as is often the case, they are more or less faithful (if incompetent) attempts at reproducing a valid original. For example, the dates 5 and 9 given in the spurious copper plates of Samudragupta are taken by some historians as indicating that he, and not Candragupta I, was the founder of the Gupta era (*SI* 270–1 n. 4; cf. 5.5.1.6). Moreover, even if the dates of the inscriptions themselves cannot be trusted, the historical material presented in them by way of genealogical and eulogistic preamble is usually unaltered from the original; in Fleet's words, "[T]here are . . . no general grounds for assuming any deliberate falsification of such items of real history" (206). For these reasons, then, spurious ancient inscriptions—as opposed to modern forgeries—are normally felt to be legitimate objects of scholarly study and worthy of publication in the usual channels (with, of course, due attention being called to their spuriousness).