Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c10.s2.2

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.