Indian Epigraphy c14.s2.3

c14.s2.3

The close contact of Ceylon with non-Tamil India in pre-Christian times seems to be indicated by another fact. We know that the early independent rulers of India were satisfied with the simpler title Rājan while the Indo-Greek kings of North-Western Bhāratavarṣa introduced the royal title Rājā mahān or Mahārāja, which was essentially a translation of the old Persian title Kṣāyaθiya vazṛka enjoyed by the Achaemenian monarchs, about the middle of the 2nd century B. C. The earliest indigenous Indian monarch assuming the title Mahārāja is king Khāravela of Kaliṅga who flourished about the close of the 1st century B.C., while the same title appears in Ceylonese epigraphs which may be somewhat earlier in date.¹ This seems to suggest that the title was borrowed by Ceylon from Western or North-Western Bhāratavarṣa which came under the influence of the Greeks. Some of these early Ceylonese records have to be read from right to left in the Kharoṣṭhī fashion.² This also seems to point to Ceylon's contact with the Kharoṣṭhī-using areas of the said part of India. The letter ḷ in early Ceylonese epigraphs is not idicated by a diacritically marked l as used in the Early Brāhmī alphabet of the Tamil areas but by ḍ endowed with a diacritical mark as known from other parts of India.