Indian Epigraphy c8.s1.9

c8.s1.9

Some of the inscriptions of the Scytho-Parthian and Kuṣāṇa rulers of North-Western Bhāratavarṣa are written in a mixture of Prakrit and Sanskrit and some of the earliest epigraphs in Sanskrit are also noticed amongst the records of the foreign rulers of Śaka nationality. Thus a few Mathura inscriptions¹ of the time of Śaka Soḍāsa (first quarter of the 1st century A.D.) contain stanzas in Classical Sanskrit and in ornate metres like *Śārdūlavikrīḍita* and *Bhujangavijṛmbhita*, while the Junagadh inscription² (150 A.D.) of Śaka Rudradāman is a good composition in Sanskrit prose in the Classical *kāvya* style. It appears that Sanskrit was patronised at the courts of the foreign rulers of North-Western Bhāratavarṣa whence its popularity spread gradually over other parts of the country. One of the earliest authors of works in Classical Sanskrit was Aśvaghoṣa who, according to tradition, lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. first at Pāṭaliputra in Bihar and later at the court of the Kuṣāṇa king Kaniṣka at Puruṣapura (Peshawar). It has, however, to be noted that, in spite of the occasional use of Sanskrit noticed in the inscriptions of the time of the Śaka rulers belonging to the 1st and 2nd centuries A. D., some of their West Indian epigraphic and numismatic records of the following two centuries exhibit the use of Sanskrit with an admixture of Prakrit.³