Indian Epigraphy c10.s1.7

c10.s1.7

¹ The Kāyasthas first occur in the inscriptions of the Gupta age (cf. Select Inscriptions, p. 284; etc.). Vijñāneśvara explains the word occurring in the Yājñavalkyasmṛti (I, 336) as gaṇako lekhakaś=ca, i.e. an accountant-scribe, for which see also the Mahābhārata, II, 5, 72. The word kāya-stha literally means ‘one who stays in the body [of another]’. An officer who sat beside his master in discharging his duties and was generally the chief intermediary between his master and the latter’s clients may have been called Kāyastha because he was staying in the person of his master as it were. See Bhār. Vid., Vol. X, 1949, pp. 280 ff.