Indian Epigraphy c8.s1.2

c8.s1.2

The earliest epigraphic records of the indigenous rulers of India are written in the Prakrit language. Originally the epigraphic language of the whole of India was mainly Prakrit and Sanskrit is first noticed in the inscriptions of North India from about the second half of the 1st century B.C. Sanskrit gradually ousted Prakrit from the field of Indian epigraphy in all parts of the country. In North India, the establishment of Sanskrit in the place of Prakrit in inscriptions was nearly complete by the end of the 3rd century A. D. But the suppression of Prakrit in the epigraphs of South India took place as late as the second half of the 4th century.¹