Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s3.t1: 2.3.1 Geographical range

Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s3.t1

Language: English

2.3.1 Geographical range

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The presumptive homeland and principal area of the use of Kharoṣṭhī script (see table 2.5) was the territory along and around the Indus, Swat, and Kabul River Valleys of Table 2.5. Kharoṣṭhī Script

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| ă | [Figure:] | ĭ | [Figure:] | ŭ | [Figure:] | e | [Figure:] | o | [Figure:] | aṃ | [Figure:] |

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| kă | [Figure:] | kĭ | [Figure:] | kŭ | [Figure:] | ke | [Figure:] | ko | [Figure:] | kaṃ | [Figure:] |

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Conjunct consonants (representative examples)

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| kṣa | [Figure:] | tra | [Figure:] | tva | [Figure:] | pra | [Figure:] |
| rva | [Figure:] | sta | [Figure:] | spa | [Figure:] | sya | [Figure:] |

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Note: These are normalized forms based on inscriptions of ca. first century A.D.

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the modern North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan; that is, the ancient Gandhāra and adjoining regions, with whose MIA language, nowadays usually called “Gāndhārī” (see 3.1.4.2.1), the script is almost invariably associated (see map 1). In Konow’s words, “The Kharoshṭhī area proper may be defined as extending from about 69° to 73° 30′ E. and from the Hindu Kush to about 33° N., and there can be little doubt that its place of origin was Gandhāra, perhaps more especially Taxila” (CII 2.1, xiv).¹²²

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¹²² See also Konow’s map of the findspots of Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions (CII 2.1, xiv), and the maps in G. Fussman, “Gāndhārī écrite, Gāndhārī parlée” (for reference see the bibliography), 434–5.

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But although Konow’s general comments about the Kharoṣṭhī area “proper” still hold true, numerous discoveries since his time have provided many examples of inscriptions and other documents in Kharoṣṭhī script ranging over a much broader area.¹²³ To the far west and northwest, we can now add to the handful of inscriptions known to Konow several more specimens (for details see 4.3.7.3) from sites along the Kabul River in Afghanistan as far west as Wardak or Khawat,¹²⁴ some thirty miles west of Kabul. Recent archaeological excavations have also yielded numerous Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions from north of the Hindu Kush, in ancient Bactria, both in sites in northern Afghanistan such as Qunduz and in several places in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (see 4.3.7.3 and 4.3.7.4).

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¹²³ For a survey of these discoveries, see Fussman, “Gāndhārī écrite, Gāndhārī parlée,” 444–51.

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¹²⁴ I.e., the Wardak vase inscription, CII 2.1, 165–70.

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In the far north, graffiti in Kharoṣṭhī have recently been found in large numbers at various sites around Chilas and other places along the upper course of the Indus River (see 4.3.3.1). These new discoveries provide a connecting link between the central Kharoṣṭhī area and the previously isolated Kharoṣṭhī inscription from Khalatse¹²⁵ along the Indus in Ladakh.

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¹²⁵ CII 2.1, 79–81.

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To the south and southwest, sporadic examples of Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions were known to Konow (there are no major subsequent discoveries in this area) along the lower Indus as far as Mohenjo-Daro, and in Baluchistan;¹²⁶ and to the southeast, in Kāṅgrā¹²⁷ and in the region around Delhi and Mathurā.¹²⁸ Occasional stray finds of Kharoṣṭhī letters farther to the east and south are not indicative of significant use of the script in those regions. Thus a plaque with a Kharoṣṭhī inscription found at Kumrahār (Patna; CII 2.1, 177–8) is most likely an import from the northwest (CII 2.1, xiv), and the apparent occurrence of a few Kharoṣṭhī letters on the bases of pillars from Bhārhut (Satna Dist., MP) as reported by Cunningham¹²⁹ is of uncertain significance. Still farther afield, the well-known occurrence of the single word *lipikareṇa* in Kharoṣṭhī in three Aśokan inscriptions from Karnataka (see 4.3.1.1 n. 67) is evidently only a scribe’s flourish.¹³⁰

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¹²⁶ Tor Dherai, CII 2.1, 173–6.

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¹²⁷ Both of the Kāṅgrā inscriptions, from Pāṭhyār (CII 2.1, 178) and Kaṇhiāra (ibid., 178–9), are biscripts, with the text given (with some variation) in both Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī.

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¹²⁸ Karnāl, CII 2.1, 179; Rāwal, ibid., 161–2; Mathurā, ibid., 30–49.

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¹²⁹ *The Stûpa of Bharhut*, 8 and pl. VIII.

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¹³⁰ Cf. Konow, CII 2.1, xiv. Reports by B. N. Mukherjee (c.g., *Quarterly Review of Historical Studies* 29.2, 1989–90, 6–14) of inscriptions in Kharoṣṭhī or a mixed Kharoṣṭhī-Brāhmī script from West Bengal and even farther to the east are of questionable validity; see SAI 91–2 for evaluation and further references.

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[Figure: Map 1 Extent Of Kharoṣṭhī Script]

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MAP 1

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Extent of Kharoṣṭhī script

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In the form of legends on the coins of the Indo-Greek and Scythian kings, Kharoṣṭhī script was also in use over a wide area of northern India and adjoining regions, including the western coastal region. Noteworthy in the latter region are the coins of the early Western Kṣatrapas Nahapāna and Caṣṭana, whose coins had legends in three scripts—Greek, Brāhmī, and Kharoṣṭhī.

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Finally, in and around the third century A.D. Kharoṣṭhī was a major script for epigraphic and literary purposes in central Asia, as attested especially by the abundant finds of official documents of the Shan-shan (Kroraina) kingdom on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin written on leather and wood (see 4.3.7.12) as well as of other inscriptions, and by the birch-bark manuscript of the *Dharmapada* in Kharoṣṭhī script from the region of Khotan (Brough, GD). Some still unpublished Kharoṣṭhī documents, apparently of later date, have also been found at sites on the north of the Tarim Basin.¹³¹ A few Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions have even been found in China proper, for instance, at Lo-yang (see 4.3.7.12).

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¹³¹ See n. 138.

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Thus, while the Kharoṣṭhī script developed and remained concentrated in the Gāndhāra region, it also spread over a wide area within and far beyond the immediately adjoining portions of modern Pakistan and Afghanistan. The spread of Kharoṣṭhī was no doubt promoted by its use by the Indo-Scythian rulers, and especially by the Kuṣāṇa kings, who seem to have been responsible for its introduction into the north Indian heartland on the one hand and Bactria on the other. The expansion of Kharoṣṭhī was also intimately connected with the spread of Buddhism under the patronage of the aforementioned rulers, as is indicated by the content of the inscriptions from outlying regions such as Bactria and China; these inscriptions, mostly dedicatory and memorial in content, are often hardly distinguishable in form from similar inscriptions from India, and presumably reflect the presence of Gāndhārī-speaking Indian monks in the Buddhist monasteries of these places.