Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t5.12

c9.s2.t5.12

From the early centuries of the Christian era we have a large number of dedicatory stone inscriptions in Brāhmī script, many of them Buddhist but some also Jaina and Brahmanical, associated with the reigns of the Indo-Scythian Kṣatrapas of Mathurā and the great Kuṣāṇa kings (Kaniṣka and his successors). The language of most of these inscriptions is Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit, but some, especially the later ones, are in more or less standard Sanskrit. The majority of the inscriptions of this group are from Mathurā and are collected in H. Lüders' *Mathurā Inscriptions*. Other specimens have been found farther to the south and east, mainly at Buddhist sites such as Set-Mahet, Sāñcī, and Sārnāth. A typical example of the inscriptions of this group is the Sārnāth umbrella shaft inscription of the time of Kaniṣka (Appendix, no. 5).