Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t7.9

c9.s2.t7.9

The oldest Sri Lankan inscriptions consist mostly of dedications of caves to the Buddhist *saṃgha*, usually written in a local variety of old Brāhmī script above the entrance to the caves. These and other similar early inscriptions, numbering well over a thousand, are dated on historical and paleographic grounds from about the third century B.C. to the third or fourth century A.D. Their language is referred to as “Old Sinhalese” or “Sinhalese Prakrit” (see 3.1.4.2.2). Several of the earlier inscriptions of this group (39 out of 1,234 in Paranavitana, *Inscriptions of Ceylon* I) are written from right to left instead of the usual left to right; a few (e.g., no. 1099) are inscribed in boustrophedon (cf. 2.2.3.2.4).