Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t5.7

c9.s2.t5.7

Recent explorations in the valleys of the Indus River and its tributaries in northern Pakistan have brought to light nearly two hundred short Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions of about the first to third centuries from the Chilas, Alam Bridge, and Hunza-Haldeikish sites.⁸⁰ These and other sites in the Chilas-Gilgit region have also yielded many thousands of inscriptions of various periods, mostly somewhat later, in Brāhmī and other scripts and languages (see 3.5.3.1 and 3.5.3.3).⁸¹ Most of these inscriptions are brief graffiti or travelers’ records but are nonetheless of considerable historical, cultural, and linguistic importance. The abundant epigraphic material from this region is being published in the volumes of *Antiquities of Northern Pakistan* (see the bibliography, s.v. Karl Jettmar) and in the *Materialen zur Archäologie der Nordgebiete Pakistans* series.⁸²