Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s2.t6.41

c7.s2.t6.41

Around the late sixth century, the so-called Gupta script of northern India evolved into a distinct new script for which the preferred name is Siddhamātṛkā,¹¹² which was to have a profound effect on the subsequent development of the northern scripts. Early specimens of this script include the Bodh-Gayā inscription of Mahānāman (A.D. 588/89; CII 3, 274–8) and the Lakkhā Maṇḍal *praśasti* (Appendix, no. 8). It continued to be used into the tenth century, undergoing a gradual transformation into Devanāgarī during the latter part of this period. Siddhamātṛkā was used as an epigraphic script not only in northern and eastern India but also in the west, where it replaced the southern-style scripts which until then had predominated there, and occasionally in the Deccan and even in the far south, for example, in the Paṭṭadakal biscript inscription (EI 3, 1–7; see 2.5.4). In this respect it prefigured the role of its daughter script, Devanāgarī, as a quasi-national script which was sometimes preferred to the local scripts for writing Sanskrit.