Indian Epigraphy c10.s1.2

c10.s1.2

In ancient and medieval India, specialised learning in various branches of the sciences and arts and in the sacred lore was more or less the monopoly of the Brāhmaṇa community. But secular learning of the three R's was available to the upper classes among the non-Brahmanical communities, members of which sometimes acquired proficiency in Sanskrit and produced poetical works of considerable merit.¹ Literate people of these classes often took the writer's profession and, as a result, the communities of professional writers gradually came into being even in the early period.