Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t7.89

c9.s2.t7.89

The largest body of material in this category consists of the documents written in Kharoṣṭhī script and in a local variety, sometimes called Niya or Kroraina Prakrit, of northwestern or Gāndhārī Prakrit (3.1.4.2.1). Boyer, Rapson, and Senart published 764 documents from the Niya River, Endere, and Lou-lan sites in KI, and 18 additional texts were subsequently published by J. Brough (BSOS 9, 1937–39, 111–23); in recent years several more documents of this type have come to light.¹²⁸ These documents are usually written with ink on wooden or leather tablets.¹²⁹ They are mostly official and economic records of about the third century of the local kingdom known as Kroraina or Shan-Shan, and provide detailed information about the everyday bureaucratic workings of this kingdom. They thus constitute a body of practical data of a type which is very rare in India itself for the corresponding period.