Indian Epigraphy c8.s2.t8: 4. Kashmiri (Kaśmīrī) and Allied Dialects

Indian Epigraphy c8.s2.t8

Language: English

4. Kashmiri (Kaśmīrī) and Allied Dialects

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We have few epigraphic records in Kashmiri so far discovered and published. There are some written in an admixture of Sanskrit and Kashmiri.⁶

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⁶ Cf. Vogel, Antiquities of Chamba State, Part I, p. 251 (No. 48).

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The charters issued by the early rulers of Chamba are written in Sanskrit⁷ while those of the later rulers are mostly in the local dialect. There are also numerous private records in this dialect.

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⁷ See, e.g., ibid., pp. 159 ff., pp. 182 ff., for the Sanskrit grants. For a private record in the local dialect, see op. cit., p. 251 (No. 49).

A large number of the official and unofficial records published recently by Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra in the Antiquities of Chamba State, Part II, are bilingual being written in Chambyālī (called Bhāṣā in the records) and Sanskrit. The bilingual charters of the Chamba rulers generally begin and end in Sanskrit while their middle portion constituting the deed proper is written in the local dialect.⁸

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⁸ B. Ch. Chhabra, op. cit., p. 13.