Indian Epigraphy c10.s1.6

c10.s1.6

In copper-plate grants, the writer is generally called Kāyastha¹ and Karaṇika² or Karaṇin³ (i.e. an officer belonging to the Karaṇa⁴ meaning ‘the office of administration’). The epigraphic records sometimes mention the Karaṇika-Brāhmaṇa⁵ and Karaṇa-Kāyastha.⁶ While early legal authorities⁷ mention Karaṇa as a tribe, medieval lexicons⁸ recognise Kāyastha and Karaṇa as synonymous terms meaning a ‘scribe’ or ‘a member of the writer class.’ These facts may suggest that the tribal people called Karaṇa adopted, in some parts of India, the profession of scribes while the Kāyasthas were originally a professional class of accountant-scribes, the whole group of writers being later crystallised into a sort of caste called Kāyastha or Karaṇa. The Persian word dabir, ‘writer’, is found in Indian epigraphs as dibira or divira.⁹ It was probably introduced into the western areas of India, which once came under the influence of the Śakas and the Sassanians of Iran.