Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s5.t1: 2.5.1 General comments
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c7.s5.t1
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2.5.1 General comments
c7.s5.t1.1
The technical features and visual qualities of Indic inscriptions vary widely, ranging from undecorated, strictly functional records to highly ornate and polished works of art. Especially in the earlier centuries, many inscriptions exhibit a rather casual attitude toward aesthetic quality and orthographic accuracy (see 3.3.8), which may be attributed in part to the marginal value traditionally accorded to the written as opposed to the spoken word in India (2.1.1). It is true that in some cases, for example, in Buddhist reliquary inscriptions that were meant to be permanently interred in *stūpas*, legibility and visual aesthetic appeal may be considered inherently insignificant. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to find extremes of carelessness in the planning and execution of inscriptions which were clearly meant to be seen and read; and while this is most common in minor private records, it can also be observed in royal inscriptions, as, for example, in the notorious case of the Erraguḍi rock edicts of Aśoka (see n. 82).²¹⁰ There are, of course, many exceptions to this pattern, especially in the late medieval period in which the arts of writing and engraving attained their highest development (see 2.5.3.1), but on the whole one must agree with Sircar (SIE 86) that “[t]he number of inscriptions carelessly written and engraved is ... by far larger than those written and engraved carefully.”
c7.s5.t1.2
²¹⁰ Note also J. Ph. Vogel’s comments (EI 20, 1929–30), regarding the Nāgārjunakoṇḍa inscriptions, that “the careless manner in which they have been recorded is astonishing” (11).