Indian Epigraphy c11.t1.19

c11.t1.19

Very interesting light on the nature of the rāja-śāsana is also thrown by the section entitled lekhya-prakaraṇa in Yājñavalkya’s work, though the verses deal with bonds. Vijñāneśvara points out that, of the two kinds of documents called śāsana and jānapada, the section deals with the latter, although he admits that there was no great difference between the two varieties. From this section we learn that the year, the month, the fortnight, the day, the names [of both the parties], the case, gotra, sabrahmacārika, the fathers’ names [of both the parties] and similar other details were specified in the documents. It is also said that a duplicate document could be prepared when the original one was left in a distant land or was illegible, lost, damaged, stolen, broken, burnt or torn.¹ The jānapada documents were evidently not written on durable material. Ancient Indian authorities also dealt with the problem of spurious charters and the ways of distinguishing such documents from genuine records.²