Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s1.t4.7

c8.s1.t4.7

This is not to say that the inscriptions in this dialect, which Senart called “Monumental Prakrit,”²⁰ are totally devoid of local variations. On the contrary, we do occasionally find, in the southern inscriptions, for example, instances of the influence of the local (Dravidian) language, as in *ayira-haghāna* = *ārya-saṅghānām* at Nāgārjunakoṇḍa (*Āyaka*-pillar ins. C–2; SI I, 232, l. 10). There are also considerable variations in orthography, with inscriptions from the later part of the period in question, that is, those of about the third and fourth centuries a.d., showing an increasing precision, most notably in indicating geminate consonants which had hitherto almost always been represented by the corresponding single consonant (see examples cited in SIE 43–4). Stylistically too, there is a considerable range of variation, from the brief and unadorned style of the donative inscriptions from Buddhist *stūpa* sites such as Sāñcī and Bhārhut to the quasi-literary compositions of the Hāthīgumphā inscription of King Khāravela or the Nāsik inscription of the time of Vāsiṣṭhīputra Puḷumāvī (SI I.203–7). But all in all, the standard epigraphic or “Monumental” Prakrit can be treated as essentially a single language whose use spread far beyond its place of origin, and which should not be taken to represent the local vernacular of every region and period where it appears.²¹