Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c8.230

c8.230

Bühler has proved that the borrowing of the North Semitic alphabets, the source of the Brāhmī script of India, is to be dated at about 800 B. C.¹ It is therefore not at all surprising that already in the Jātakas bonds of debt (iṇapaṇṇāni), royal proclamations and instructive speeches engraved on golden tablets are mentioned ². The famous edicts of Aśoka are proclamations of this kind and may be compared with the Prajñāpanapattra and Ājñāpattra of the Smṛtis. By far most frequently however the Śāsanas are found among the inscriptions which are generally engraved on copper plates and composed exactly according to the above-mentioned formulas of the Smṛtis. Even the seals found on them are in comformity with the rules inasmuch as e. g. the seals of the Cālukyas exhibit the boar and those of the Guptas the Garuḍa³. For an ancient epigraphical specimen of the document of verdict in a suit, which was found in Java, see § 18. The Sandhipattras and Dānapattras too may be verified epigraphically; forgeries, particularly of documents of pious gifts, were also in evidence already at a very early period, as e. g. king Harṣa in an edict of 631—32 refers to a forged grant (kūṭaśāsanam) which a Brahman had used as a title of possession⁴.