Indian Epigraphy c6.s5.2

c6.s5.2

It has to be admitted that only some of the inscriptions can be regarded as truly historical documents. No doubt many of them deal with historical events and personages; but history is often shadowed in them by poetical, eulogistic and conventional elements. Most records therefore give the impression that references to historical events in them are incidental. Their evidence is thus often indirect and leaves many things to be surmised and inferred. It is only rarely that we get in inscriptions fairly full and satisfactory information regarding an event or a person. As already pointed out, the authors of inscriptions always suffered from a limitation of space and their treatment of history was never elaborate. Sometimes the genealogical section of the inscriptions quotes the names of past rulers with the barest detail or without any details at all.