Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s3.t1.1

c8.s3.t1.1

It is, in the words of Louis Renou, “le grand paradoxe linguistique de l’Inde”⁴³ that Sanskrit, the linguistic parent of MIA, first appeared in inscriptions much later than its own descendants. For Sanskrit began to come into epigraphic use only in the first century B.C., according to the now generally accepted dating (mainly on paleographic grounds) for the oldest Sanskrit inscriptions, namely, the Ayodhyā (SI I.94–5) and the Ghosuṇḍī (SI I.90–1) and Hāthībāḍā (EI 22, 198–205) stone inscriptions.