Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t7.10

c9.s2.t7.10

Most of the later Sri Lankan inscriptions are written in more advanced forms of the Sinhalese variety of Brāhmī script and of the Sinhalese language which developed out of Sinhalese Prakrit. Such inscriptions are relatively rare between the fourth to eighth centuries, but stone inscriptions, mostly recording royal proclamations and grants to Buddhist establishments, become very common in the ninth to twelfth centuries (see 3.4.7). A particularly interesting and important body of materials is the literary graffiti from Sīgiri, published by S. Paranavitana in *Sigiri Graffiti*.