Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t7.1

c9.s2.t7.1

Inscriptions in Indo-Aryan languages from outside of the geographical boundaries of traditional India as defined for this study (i.e., the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) number in the thousands and constitute a major branch of the field of Indian epigraphy. Such extra-Indian inscriptions are found from Egypt to Vietnam, and from Azerbaijan to Indonesia.⁹⁷ Their form and content are equally diverse, sometimes very similar to corresponding material from India, as in the case of many of the specimens from Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, sometimes radically different, as in most of the material from Chinese central Asia. Almost without exception,⁹⁸ the epigraphs are written in Indic scripts, either in their original Indian form or in local variants or derivatives thereof (especially in Southeast Asia). Many of the extra-Indian inscriptions, particularly in Southeast Asia, are bilinguals.⁹⁹