Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s2.t1.1

c8.s2.t1.1

From about the first to the fourth century of the Christian era, a large number of inscriptions from northern, central, and occasionally also southern India were written in a peculiar language which is neither fully Sanskrit nor fully Prakrit but partakes of the characteristics of both. This language has accordingly been referred to by such terms as “mixed dialect,” “Sanskrit influenced by Prakrit,” or “Prakrit influenced by Sanskrit.” In 1978, Th. Damsteegt coined the term “Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit” (EHS) in his book of the same name, on the analogy of Franklin Edgerton’s “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit”; and although, like its prototype, the term is potentially misleading in some cases, it deserves to be, and largely has been, adopted for general use.