Indian Epigraphy c14.s1.8

c14.s1.8

A large number of manuscripts and documents written in Kharoṣṭhī with ink on wedge-shaped and rectangular tablets of wood have been found in Chinese Turkestan. They are usually assigned to dates ranging from the 3rd century A.D. There are also manuscripts like that of the Prakrit Dhammapada which is written in Kharoṣṭhī on birch-bark sheets and is assigned to the 2nd century A.D. Kharoṣṭhī continued to be used in the said area till the 7th century A.D. side by side with Brāhmī which seems to have been introduced in Central Asia during the Gupta age. Among Sanskrit manuscripts in Brāhmī on palm-leaf, paper and birch-bark, reference may be made to Kumāralāta’s *Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā* and the *Udānavarga*, both of which are assignable on palaeographical grounds to the 4th or 5th century A.D., and the Bower manuscripts, the date of which is about a century later. Other Sanskrit manuscripts in Brāhmī, discovered in Central Asia, include fragments of Aśvaghoṣa’s drama entitled *Śāriputraprakaraṇa*. From about the 7th century A.D., we have records in the local dialects of Central Asia written in the derivatives of Brāhmī.¹