The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c7.s1.48

c7.s1.48

The oldest northern document was supposed at one time to be the dedication of the relics of Buddha at Piprāwā, which was believed to date from about 450 B. C., but more recent criticism has thrown doubt upon that theory.⁵ At present the oldest extant inscription is the Sohgaura copper plate from the Gorakhpur district, which is tentatively assigned to a date about fifty years prior to Asoka. This document, which is concerned with government storehouses, needs further elucidation.⁶ The number of documents prior to the Christian era is much more considerable in the north than in the south. Few records of the third century after Christ have survived, but, if the scheme of Kushān chronology adopted in this work is approximately correct, those of the second century may be described as numerous.