Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s4.t4: 3.4.4 Hindi and related languages and dialects
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s4.t4
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3.4.4 Hindi and related languages and dialects
c8.s4.t4.1
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."
c8.s4.t4.2
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
c8.s4.t4.3
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.
c8.s4.t4.5
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).
c8.s4.t4.6
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).
c8.s4.t4.7
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.
c8.s4.t4.8
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