Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c2: Preface
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c2
- Language
- English
Preface
c2.1
This book is intended to provide a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Indo-Aryan languages. This is a vast body of material, comprising tens of thousands of documents over a chronological range of more than two millennia and a geographical range including not only “India” in the broadest traditional sense of the term but also much of southeast, central, and other parts of Asia. The range of the material is equally broad in terms of languages, scripts, style, and content. I have attempted to survey the entire corpus of inscriptions in all the Indo-Aryan languages and to present it in such a way as to make it accessible not only to specialists in the field but also to nonspecialists, whether they be Indologists working in other subfields (e.g., South Asian historians) or scholars involved in epigraphic and related studies in other regions of the world. I have therefore tried to strike a balance between the needs of the nonspecialist, who may be less interested in technical details, and the desire to present a complete and accurate picture of this complex subject; where it proved necessary to choose between the two, I preferred to err on the side of completeness.
c2.2
This book is intended to supplement rather than to supplant previous general studies of Indian epigraphy, especially *Indian Epigraphy* by D. C. Sircar, whose expertise in this subject no one could hope to exceed or even equal. Nonetheless, I have felt it worthwhile to attempt a more up-to-date survey (that of Sircar being now more than thirty years old), one which will present the field from a somewhat broader and less specialized point of view.
c2.3
It seems advisable to state clearly at the outset the limits which have been set for this study. This is, first of all, a book on epigraphy, not paleography; that is to say, it is mainly concerned with the study of inscriptions and their contents rather than with the forms, varieties, and historical development of the scripts in which they are writing carved into hard surfaces such as stone or metal (*Inschrift*). Also following traditional Indological usage, which is convenient if not strictly logical, I have included inscriptions on seals and sealings but not those on coins, the latter falling into the province of the related but separate field of numismatics. And although paleography as such (in the sense just defined) is not a major focus of this book, it seemed undesirable, indeed, impossible to discuss inscriptions without any reference to writing at all. I have therefore limited myself to a general discussion of the history and development of Indian writing and scripts (see chapter 2), without attempting to trace in detail the historical development of the many Indic scripts. (For further information on paleography proper, the reader is referred to the various sources mentioned in section 8.².1.)
c2.4
As for the epigraphic materials to be treated in this book, it should be emphasized that the limits are linguistic rather than geographical or chronological. Any and all inscriptions in Indo-Aryan languages, whether ancient or recent, from India² or from other lands, are treated as relevant to this study. Indian inscriptions in languages of other families—mainly Dravidian languages—are not treated in detail, although I have not felt constrained to apply this exclusion too rigidly since the fields of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian epigraphy are closely related and even overlap to a considerable extent (for example, in the many bilingual Indo-Aryan/Dravidian inscriptions). This limitation is admittedly primarily one of convenience; although a complete study of Indian inscriptions ideally would cover material in Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and other language groups, from a practical standpoint the material involved is so vast that it would hardly be possible to do it justice in one volume. In any case, I am not qualified to treat Dravidian inscriptions adequately. In point of fact, most previous studies of Indian epigraphy have similarly concentrated on one or the other of the two major bodies of material, namely, Indo-Aryan or Dravidian, presumably for similar reasons, though they have usually not explicitly admitted that they are doing so.
c2.5
I have followed a similar course with regard to the study of the still undeciphered writing of the Indus Valley civilization; that is to say, I have mentioned it only in passing (see sections 2.1.², 2.2.3.1, and 2.2.3.3) insofar as it may relate to the scripts of the historical period. Should the language represented in these inscriptions eventually turn out to belong to the Indo-Aryan (or Indo-European) group, they would of course have to be added to the present corpus, but for the meantime they must be treated as a separate body of unidentified material.
c2.6
² The term "India" is used here as elsewhere in this book (cf. 4.3.7) to refer to traditional India, roughly corresponding to the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
c2.7
I have benefited from the assistance of so many individuals and institutions that it is impossible to give them all the credit they are due. Those individuals who have made particularly important contributions include Gérard Fussman (Collège de France), Oskar von Hinüber (University of Freiburg), Jason Neelis (University of Washington), K. R. Norman (Cambridge University), David Pingree (Brown University), Rosane Rocher (University of Pennsylvania), and David Shulman (Hebrew University). They either read the entire manuscript or substantial portions and freely shared of their erudition in their respective specialties, thereby remedying, in part at least, my own shortcomings. Dr. Nalini Balbir of the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris) provided very helpful comments on Jaina materials. Especially important were the contributions of William Arraj (Seattle), who read the entire manuscript with scrupulous care and offered many valuable suggestions. Timothy Lenz (University of Washington) skillfully assisted in the preparation of the maps. I wish to express my sincere graditude to them and the many other persons who helped me—and to apologize for being unable, in some cases, to make full use of their suggestions due to limitations of space, time, and my own abilities, but certainly not as a result of any disregard for their assistance.
c2.8
Among the many libraries whose resources facilitated the preparation of this book, special mention must be made of my home institution, the University of Washington, several of whose staff members went to great lengths in assisting me in various ways and whose skill and patience vastly facilitated the entire undertaking. Deserving of special thanks are Irene Joshi, South Asia librarian; Marie Noelle Deseilligny, reference librarian; and the entire staff of the interlibrary borrowing service.
c2.9
I must also express my sincere appreciation to the institutions which saw fit to support the research for this book: the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Graduate School Research Fund of the University of Washington. To these institutions, and to all of the individuals who have assisted or expressed interest in this project over the many years it has taken to complete, I am also grateful for their patience.
c2.10
Finally, a word of thanks to my friends and colleagues in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, who helped in so many ways in this project, not least of all by their long-lasting interest, support, and patience.
c2.11
*Seattle, Washington* *April 1996* R.S.