Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s4: 3.4 The New Indo-Aryan (NIA) Languages

Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s4

Language: English

c8.s4.t1 3.4.1 Marathi — 4 parts
c8.s4.t2 3.4.2 Oriya — 5 parts
c8.s4.t3 3.4.3 Gujarati — 4 parts
c8.s4.t4 3.4.4 Hindi and related languages and dialects — 8 parts
c8.s4.t5 3.4.5 Bengali and other eastern NIA languages — 5 parts
c8.s4.t6 3.4.6 Nepali — 2 parts
c8.s4.t7 3.4.7 Sinhalese — 4 parts

3.4 The New Indo-Aryan (NIA) Languages

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D. B. Diskalkar, “Inscriptions in Sanskritic Provincial Languages,” *JOI* 6, 1956–57, 129–39; *SIE* 53–60.

The study of inscriptions in the New Indo-Aryan languages could well be described as the stepchild of Indian epigraphy. Compared with the attention which has been paid to Old and Middle Indo-Aryan inscriptions on the one hand, and to Dravidian on the other, NIA epigraphy is virtually an untouched field. Reliable collections and studies are lacking for most of the NIA languages (Tuḷpuḷe’s *Prācīna Marāṭhī Korīva Lekha* is one of the few important exceptions), and many of the collections and editions of individual inscriptions are in local publications and/or in the various regional languages concerned, rendering them difficult of access to the scholarly community as a whole. Although editions of NIA inscriptions are occasionally published in *EI* and other major journals, the majority have been merely reported in *ARIE*, often with only the vague designation of “local dialect,” and never properly published elsewhere. Because of these problems, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive and reliable survey of the subject; what is presented here is based on the available published materials but can hardly be considered complete or authoritative.

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The neglect of the NIA inscriptions is attributable to various factors (see Diskalkar, 129). For one thing, none of them can claim any great antiquity. Moreover, they have on the whole less historical importance than those in the other Indic and Islamic languages (i.e., Arabic and Persian; see 3.5.2), the majority of them being private records of a rather humble character. Nevertheless, they are worthy of much more attention than has until now been accorded to them, as they are potentially excellent sources of data for such subjects as social history, religion, and historical linguistics.

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The earliest clear-cut specimens of NIA languages (notably Marathi and Oriya; see 3.4.1 and 3.4.2) appear in inscriptions of about the eleventh century. It is often difficult, however, to specify a precise date for the earliest epigraphic attestation of a given NIA language, as their emergence is gradual (not unlike the situation with Sanskrit at a much earlier time). Occasional traces of NIA have been observed within Sanskrit records somewhat before the eleventh century, and the earliest definite specimens are typically mixed in varying degrees with Sanskrit. Even in later centuries, it is very common for NIA inscriptions to be bi- or multilingual with Sanskrit, Dravidian, other NIA languages, or Islamic languages.

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The dates of earliest epigraphic attestation for the various NIA languages vary widely, as do the degrees to which they are developed as epigraphic languages. These discrepancies are due to various historical and geographical factors, most importantly the date and extent to which Islamic governments were established in the different regions (see *SIE* 53). In those portions of northern and central India in which Islamic rule was firmly entrenched at an early date, the Islamic languages directly supplanted Sanskrit as the principal epigraphic medium, whereas the NIA languages developed in this function in areas where Islamic rule was established only later in the medieval period. This accounts, for example, for the discrepancy between Oriya, which became one of the most important NIA epigraphic languages, and neighboring Bengali, which was almost negligible in this respect; for Bengal was one of the first parts of India to come under Islamic rule, while Orissa was among the last.

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In some regions—again, most notably in Maharashtra and Orissa—the regional NIA vernaculars were even elevated to the rank of imperial languages. In such cases one may suspect the influence of neighboring Dravidian-speaking regions, in which epigraphic use of the local vernacular, instead of or in addition to Sanskrit, was a long-established tradition.⁶⁸ In these regions we find the vernaculars regularly used for official records of the usual sorts. Elsewhere, NIA inscriptions are predominantly private in character; especially common are memorial records of various types.

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⁶⁸ Cf. the comments of Kunjabihari Tripathi in *The Evolution of Oriya Language and Script*, v.

3.4.1 Marathi

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Śaṁ. Go. Tuḷpuḷe, *Prācīna Marāṭhī Korīva Lekha* ["Old Marathi Inscriptions"]; A. Master, "Some Marathi Inscriptions, a.d. 1060–1300," *BSOAS* 20, 1957, 417–35; A. V. Naik, "Inscriptions of the Deccan," 55–8, etc.; V. V. Mirashi, *Inscriptions of the Śilāhāras* (CII 6); D. B. Diskalkar, *JOI* 6, 132–7; *SIE* 53–5.

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The epigraphic material in Marathi is the most abundant and best-documented among the NIA languages. The principal reference sources are Master's brief anthology of sixteen inscriptions and Tuḷpuḷe's larger though by no means exhaustive compilation of seventy-six texts. Diskalkar (132) estimates a total of some three hundred inscriptions in Marathi, of which about two hundred are from Maharashtra proper and the rest from neighboring territories, mainly Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Marathi first began to appear in inscriptions around the eleventh century a.d.,⁶⁹ and Marathi inscriptions became especially common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the language was widely used by the Yādavas of Devagiri and the Śilāhāras of northern Konkan (see CII 6) for their inscriptions. Marathi continued to be used epigraphically in the later medieval period, for instance in the records of the Ādil Shāhīs, and even into the European period; an interesting late (a.d. 1803) Marathi inscription is the long history of the Tanjore Marathas inscribed on the wall of the Bṛhadīśvara temple in Tañjāvur (V. Srinivansachari and S. Gopalan, *Bhoṁsle Vaṁśa Caritra*).

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⁶⁹ Occasional Marathi words and usages have also been noted in some inscriptions of the tenth century, e.g., the Marmuri copper plates (*Journal of the Bombay Historical Society* 2, 213–4).

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Most Marathi inscriptions are of the usual types of the period concerned, that is, donative or memorial records on stone, and copper plate charters; according to Diskalkar (132), the former type constitutes about three-quarters of the total. The majority are written in Devanāgarī, but some are in the Moḍī and Kannada scripts. As with other NIA language inscriptions, many of the Marathi inscriptions are bilingual. Very common are bilinguals of various types with Sanskrit, for example, Sanskrit copper plate charters with some of the "functional" portions written in Marathi and exhibiting varying degrees of linguistic admixture between Sanskrit and Marathi (see Master, 417–8). Many later Marathi inscriptions are bilingual with other languages such as Kannada, Telugu, or Persian. There are, of course, also monolingual Marathi inscriptions; the Dīve Āgar plate, for example (Tuḷpuḷe, 10–14; Master, 422–3; EI 28, 121–4), is an early copper plate grant composed entirely (except for the date in Sanskrit) in Old Marathi.

3.4.2 Oriya

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K. Tripathi, *The Evolution of Oriya Language and Script*; idem, *Prācīna Oṛiā Abhilekha*; R. Subrahmanyam, *Inscriptions of the Sūryavaṃśī Gajapatis of Orissa*.

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After Marathi, Oriya is the most abundantly attested and important among the inscriptional NIA languages; Diskalkar (JOI 6, 129) estimates the number of Oriya inscriptions at 150, and Tripathi presents a selection of 71 Oriya inscriptions from A.D. 1051 to 1568 in *The Evolution of Oriya Language and Script* (222ff.).⁷⁰ These records are found in various districts of Orissa as well as in neighboring districts of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal. The early manifestations of Oriya in inscriptions follow a pattern similar to that of Marathi. Characteristics of the Oriya language can first be discerned in inscriptional Sanskrit of the tenth century A.D., for instance, in the Madras Museum Plates (EI 28, 44–50).⁷¹ Oriya proper began to appear sporadically in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the earliest specimen being dated A.D. 1051 (Tripathi, *The Evolution*, 222–4), and became common in the thirteenth and following centuries. Oriya was used frequently in the records of the Eastern Gaṅga kings and of their successors, the Sūryavaṃśī Gajapatis. Many later inscriptions of local dynasties as well as private records continued to be written in Oriya into the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even the early twentieth centuries (e.g., ARIE 1951–2, no. A.20).

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⁷⁰ Several Oriya inscriptions are also transcribed (in Devanāgarī) in SII 5 (nos. 1006, 1119, 1121, 1132–3, 1152, 1161) and 6 (nos. 654, 697, 700–3, 748–9, 778, 895, 903, 908–9, 927, 1089, 1145–65).

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⁷¹ See 3.3.8.3 and SIE 58.

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Most Oriya inscriptions are the usual donative stone records and copper plate charters. The early ones were written in “Gauḍī” or “Proto-Bengali” script, which gradually developed into a distinct Oriya script from the fourteenth century onward. Oriya inscriptions were also sometimes written in the Devanāgarī (e.g., Tripathi, *Evolution*, 248–9) or Telugu (ibid., 229–31) scripts. Like the Marathi inscriptions, many of them are bilingual (or trilingual), but the proportion of inscriptions in Oriya alone is larger than for Marathi. The multilingual records include inscriptions in Oriya together with Sanskrit and/or Telugu, Tamil (e.g., Bhubaneswar stone ins., EI 32, 229–38), and Hindi (e.g., Baripadā Museum stone ins., OHRJ 2, 94–8).

3.4.3 Gujarati

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D. B. Diskalkar, *Inscriptions of Kathiawad*.

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Inscriptions in Gujarati from various parts of the modern state of Gujarat, especially the Kathiawar and Kacch regions, number well in the hundreds; for examples see Diskalkar, nos. 79, 82–3, 85, 87–8, 90, and so on, and ARIE 1969–70, nos. B.22–138. Gujarati linguistic features appear in some Sanskrit inscriptions of the fourteenth century (e.g., Diskalkar nos. 36–7, etc.; *New Indian Antiquary* 1, 587–8), and inscriptions written entirely or nearly entirely in Gujarati date from the second half of the fifteenth century on. The latest Gujarati inscription cited by Diskalkar (no. 193) is dated Vikrama Saṃvat 1935 = A.D. 1879.

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The majority of Gujarati inscriptions are private dedicatory or memorial records. The former typically record land grants, the foundation or repair of temples or mosques, or the digging of wells. Memorial inscriptions are very frequently seen on memorial pillars or *pāliyās*, typically recording deaths in battle ("hero-stones") or by *sahagamana* ("*satī*-stones"). Pilgrims' records are also common (e.g., ARIE 1969–70, no. B.24, etc.). Many of the Gujarati inscriptions are informally or incompetently written.

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Gujarati inscriptions are generally written in Devanāgarī script or its local variant, called Boṛiyā, but some are inscribed in script forms similar to modern Gujarati (NIA 1, 588). Bilingual (and sometimes trilingual) inscriptions, usually with Sanskrit or Persian, are found in some numbers, but the majority of Gujarati inscriptions are monolingual.

3.4.4 Hindi and related languages and dialects

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Due to the linguistic complexities involved and the generally poor documentation of the materials, the study of inscriptions in Hindi and related languages is particularly problematic. As a matter of convenience the term "Hindi" is used here in a very loose sense, as in the other literature on the subject. The documents concerned actually cover a wide geographical and dialectal range, but since no comprehensive linguistic study of them has been attempted it is in most cases not possible to specify the dialects concerned, and it is regrettably necessary to resort to vague terms such as "Hindi" or "Rājasthānī."

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Inscriptions in various dialects of Hindi in the relatively strict sense of the term are found mainly in central and eastern Madhya Pradesh.⁷² (NIA inscriptions from Uttar Pradesh are rare, presumably because of the early establishment of Islamic dynasties there; see Diskalkar, JOI 6, 138, and section 3.4.) There seems to be a particular concentration of Hindi inscriptions in the territory of the former Gwalior State and adjoining regions; these inscriptions are catalogued and briefly described in H. N. Dvivedī's *Gvâliyara Rājya ke Abhilekha*.⁷³ They consist largely of *satī*- and other memorial stones, image inscriptions, and other private records from the thirteenth century on.⁷⁴

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⁷² For inscriptions in Hindi (and Punjabi) from Azerbaijan, see section 4.3.7.4.

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⁷³ The concentration of Hindi inscriptions in this region of central India may, however, be only apparent, as a result of their being relatively well documented in this book.

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⁷⁴ A Jaina image inscription from Radeb tentatively dated Vikrama (10)78 (= A.D. 1022) and described as being in Hindi was noted in the *Annual Report of the Archaeological Department of Gwalior State for Vikrama 1992* (35, ins. no. 39), but this has apparently never been published in detail and hence cannot be taken as firm evidence of the epigraphic use of Hindi in the eleventh century (see SIE 55 and n. 3).

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Hindi inscriptions from the eastern regions come mainly from relatively remote districts such as Damoh and Bastar. Here we find official stone inscriptions and copper plate charters of various local dynasties dating from the sixteenth and following centuries, for example, the Dantewāṛā bilingual⁷⁵ (Sanskrit and Hindi) inscription (EI 12, 242–50).

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⁷⁵ Like several of the NIA bilingual inscriptions, this is a "true" bilingual (see 3.6), with (approximately) the same text repeated in Sanskrit and Hindi.

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From Rajasthan and adjoining areas of western Madhya Pradesh we have numerous inscriptions of the fourteenth and following centuries in the local NIA dialects, which, however (for reasons stated earlier), cannot be specified with any linguistic precision on the basis of currently available published materials. Most of the material

3.4.5 Bengali and other eastern NIA languages

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As noted earlier (3.4), the eastern NIA languages, except for Oriya, on the whole have not been widely used for epigraphic purposes. In Bengali we have several dedicatory temple inscriptions,⁸¹ mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but dating back in one case to the fifteenth.⁸² Some of these are bilingual with or mixed with Sanskrit. There are also a few other stone inscriptions in Bengali (e.g., ARIE 1975–76, no. B.45/D.272, bilingual with Arabic), and some late copper plate records of the kings of Tripura in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (ARIE 1951–52, nos. A.13–19) are written in Bengali and Sanskrit.

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⁸¹ See A. K. Bhattacharyya, *A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions from Temples of West Bengal*, nos. 56, 58, 62, 74, 96, 106, 115, 116, etc.

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⁸² Bhattacharyya, op. cit., no. S-1, A.D. 1490.

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Assamese inscriptions are similarly late and few in number, at least as far as they are reported in published sources. Some copper plates of the Ahom kings of the eighteenth century in Sanskrit and Assamese have been noted (ARIE 1957–58, nos. A.3–5), as well as a few stone inscriptions (ibid., nos. B.65, 74–5).

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A seventeenth-century inscription in Maithili has been published in R. K. Choudhary's *Select Inscriptions of Bihar*, 138 (cf. SIE 60).

3.4.6 Nepali

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Nepali did not become an important inscriptional language until relatively recently, the principal epigraphic languages of Nepal in earlier times being Sanskrit and Newari (see 3.5.3.3 and 4.3.7.2). It is only during the time of the Shāh kings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that donative and dedicatory stone inscriptions in Nepali (often together with Sanskrit) were written in good numbers.⁸³

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⁸³ See section 4.3.7.2 for references.

3.4.7 Sinhalese

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Due no doubt to its special geographical and cultural setting, the pattern of the development of Sinhalese as an epigraphic language is entirely different from that of the NIA languages of India proper. Unlike other NIA languages, Sinhalese and its direct linguistic predecessors were the main languages of inscriptions from early times in Sri Lanka. According to Geiger and Jayatilaka's formulation,⁸⁴ the period of the Sinhalese Prakrit or Old Sinhalese inscriptions (see 3.1.4.2.2) ended about the third or fourth century A.D. and was followed by a "Proto-Sinhalese" period from the fourth to the eighth century, represented by the relatively sparse (see 4.3.7.1) epigraphic remains of that period. The more abundant inscriptions of the medieval period, especially of the ninth to the thirteenth century, represent the "Medieval Sinhalese" phase, at which stage. in Geiger's words, "the language has now become a modern Indian idiom and . . . the principal and most characteristic features of the modern language are recognisable" (op. cit., xxix).