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9780195099843
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Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages / Edition 1 available in Hardcover
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages / Edition 1
by Richard Salomon
Richard Salomon
- ISBN-10:
- 0195099842
- ISBN-13:
- 9780195099843
- Pub. Date:
- 12/10/1998
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0195099842
- ISBN-13:
- 9780195099843
- Pub. Date:
- 12/10/1998
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages / Edition 1
by Richard Salomon
Richard Salomon
Hardcover
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Overview
This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Sanskrit, Prakrit, and modern Indo-Aryan languages, including donative, dedicatory, panegyric, ritual, and literary texts carved on stone, metal, and other materials. This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives.
Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.
Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780195099843 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/10/1998 |
| Series: | South Asia Research |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.44(w) x 9.56(h) x 1.25(d) |
Table of Contents
| Abbreviations | xvii | |
| Note on Citation and Bibliographic Form | xxi | |
| 1 | The Scope and Significance of Epigraphy in Indological Studies | 3 |
| 2 | Writing and Scripts in India | 7 |
| 2.1 | General Introduction | 7 |
| 2.1.1 | Writing in traditional India | 7 |
| 2.1.2 | The antiquity of writing in India of the historical period | 10 |
| 2.1.3 | Characteristics of Indic writing | 14 |
| 2.2 | The Brahmi Script and Its Derivatives | 17 |
| 2.2.1 | Geographical and chronological range | 17 |
| 2.2.2 | The name of the script | 17 |
| 2.2.3 | The origin of Brahmi | 19 |
| 2.2.4 | Characteristics of Brahmi in the Mauryan period (third century B.C.) | 30 |
| 2.2.5 | The historical development and derivatives of Brahmi | 31 |
| 2.3 | The Kharosthi Script | 42 |
| 2.3.1 | Geographical range | 42 |
| 2.3.2 | Chronological range | 46 |
| 2.3.3 | Uses of Kharosthi | 47 |
| 2.3.4 | Paleographic features of Kharosthi | 48 |
| 2.3.5 | The name of the script | 50 |
| 2.3.6 | The origin of Kharosthi | 51 |
| 2.3.7 | Connections between Kharosthi and Brahmi | 54 |
| 2.3.8 | The paleographic development of Kharosthi | 55 |
| 2.4 | Numbers and Numerical Notation | 56 |
| 2.4.1 | Numerical notation in Brahmi and the derived scripts | 56 |
| 2.4.2 | Numerical notation in Kharosthi | 63 |
| 2.5 | Techniques of Epigraphic Writing | 64 |
| 2.5.1 | General comments | 64 |
| 2.5.2 | The technical execution of inscriptions | 65 |
| 2.5.3 | Calligraphic writing | 68 |
| 2.5.4 | Biscript inscriptions | 70 |
| 2.6 | Undeciphered Scripts | 71 |
| 3 | The Languages of Indic Inscriptions | 72 |
| 3.1 | Middle Indo-Aryan ("Prakrit") | 72 |
| 3.1.1 | General remarks | 72 |
| 3.1.2 | The Prakrits of the Asokan inscriptions | 73 |
| 3.1.3 | Other inscriptions of the Mauryan era | 76 |
| 3.1.4 | Later inscriptional Prakrits | 76 |
| 3.1.5 | Literary Middle Indo-Aryan in inscriptions | 80 |
| 3.2 | Mixed or "Hybrid" Dialects | 81 |
| 3.2.1 | The character of "Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit" (EHS) | 81 |
| 3.2.2 | Geographical and chronological distribution of EHS | 82 |
| 3.2.3 | The linguistic nature of EHS | 83 |
| 3.3 | Sanskrit | 86 |
| 3.3.1 | The earliest Sanskrit inscriptions | 86 |
| 3.3.2 | Early Sanskrit inscriptions from Mathura | 87 |
| 3.3.3 | Sanskrit inscriptions from western India in the Ksatrapa period | 88 |
| 3.3.4 | Early Sanskrit inscriptions from the Deccan and southern India | 90 |
| 3.3.5 | Early Sanskrit inscriptions from other regions | 92 |
| 3.3.6 | The emergence of Sanskrit in the Gupta period | 92 |
| 3.3.7 | Summary: Historical and cultural factors in the development of Sanskrit as an epigraphic language | 93 |
| 3.3.8 | Linguistic characteristics of inscriptional Sanskrit | 94 |
| 3.4 | The New Indo-Aryan (NIA) Languages | 99 |
| 3.4.1 | Marathi | 100 |
| 3.4.2 | Oriya | 101 |
| 3.4.3 | Gujarati | 101 |
| 3.4.4 | Hindi and related languages and dialects | 102 |
| 3.4.5 | Bengali and other eastern NIA languages | 104 |
| 3.4.6 | Nepali | 104 |
| 3.4.7 | Sinhalese | 104 |
| 3.5 | Other (Non-Indo-Aryan) Languages in Indian Inscriptions | 105 |
| 3.5.1 | Dravidian languages | 105 |
| 3.5.2 | Islamic languages (Arabic, Persian, Urdu) | 106 |
| 3.5.3 | Other non-Indic languages | 107 |
| 3.6 | Bilingual and Multilingual Inscriptions | 109 |
| 4 | Survey of Inscriptions in the Indo-Aryan Languages | 110 |
| 4.1 | Typological Survey | 110 |
| 4.1.1 | Royal donative and panegyric inscriptions (prasasti) | 110 |
| 4.1.2 | Land grant (copper plate) characters | 113 |
| 4.1.3 | Private donations | 118 |
| 4.1.4 | Memorial inscriptions | 119 |
| 4.1.5 | Label inscriptions | 120 |
| 4.1.6 | Pilgrims' and travelers' records | 121 |
| 4.1.7 | Cultic inscriptions | 122 |
| 4.1.8 | Literary inscriptions | 123 |
| 4.1.9 | Seal inscriptions | 123 |
| 4.1.10 | Miscellaneous inscriptions | 124 |
| 4.2 | Survey by Form and Material | 126 |
| 4.2.1 | Stone | 126 |
| 4.2.2 | Metals | 129 |
| 4.2.3 | Earthen materials | 130 |
| 4.2.4 | Wood | 131 |
| 4.2.5 | Miscellaneous materials | 131 |
| 4.3 | General Survey of Inscriptions | 132 |
| 4.3.1 | Inscriptions of the Mauryan period (third century B.C.) | 133 |
| 4.3.2 | Inscriptions of the Sunga period (ca. second to first centuries B.C.) | 141 |
| 4.3.3 | Inscriptions of the Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian era (ca. second century B.C. to third century A.D.) | 142 |
| 4.3.4 | Inscriptions of the Gupta era (fourth to mid-sixth centuries A.D.) | 145 |
| 4.3.5 | Inscriptions of the post-Gupta or "Medieval" era (mid-seventh to tenth centuries A.D.) | 146 |
| 4.3.6 | Inscriptions of the "Islamic period" (eleventh to eighteenth centuries A.D.) | 148 |
| 4.3.7 | Extra-Indian inscriptions | 150 |
| 5 | Methods of Epigraphic Study | 161 |
| 5.1 | The Presentation of Inscriptional Texts | 161 |
| 5.1.1 | Reproduction of the original inscription | 161 |
| 5.1.2 | Presentation of the edited text | 162 |
| 5.2 | Translation and Interpretation of Inscriptions | 164 |
| 5.3 | Authentication of Inscriptions | 165 |
| 5.4 | Dating of Inscriptions | 168 |
| 5.4.1 | Undated or inadequately dated inscriptions; paleographic dating and problems thereof | 168 |
| 5.4.2 | Dated inscriptions | 170 |
| 5.4.3 | Conversion and verification of inscriptional dates | 176 |
| 5.5 | Appendix: Eras Used in Indo-Aryan Inscriptions | 180 |
| 5.5.1 | Continuous (historical or pseudohistorical) eras | 180 |
| 5.5.2 | Cyclical (astronomical) eras | 196 |
| 6 | The History of Indian Epigraphic Studies | 199 |
| 6.1 | The Pioneering Era: Early Readings of Indian Inscriptions (1781-1834) | 199 |
| 6.2 | The Era of Decipherment (1835-1860) | 203 |
| 6.2.1 | Decipherment of the early Brahmi script | 204 |
| 6.2.2 | Decipherment of the Kharosthi script | 209 |
| 6.2.3 | Other developments during the era of decipherment | 215 |
| 6.3 | The Period of Maturity (1861-1900) | 217 |
| 6.4 | The Modern Period (1901-1947) | 221 |
| 6.5 | Indian Epigraphy Since Independence (1947 to the present) | 223 |
| 6.6 | Future Prospects and Desiderata | 224 |
| 7 | Epigraphy as a Source for the Study of Indian Culture | 226 |
| 7.1 | Epigraphy and History | 226 |
| 7.1.1 | Political and dynastic history | 226 |
| 7.1.2 | Administrative, economic, and social history | 231 |
| 7.2 | Epigraphy and the Study of Indian Literature | 232 |
| 7.2.1 | Inscriptions as a source for the history of Indian literature | 233 |
| 7.2.2 | Inscriptional texts as literature | 235 |
| 7.3 | Epigraphy and the Study of Religion | 238 |
| 7.3.1 | The Brahmanical/Hindu tradition | 239 |
| 7.3.2 | Buddhism | 241 |
| 7.3.3 | Jainism and other sects | 243 |
| 7.4 | Epigraphy and the Study of the Arts | 244 |
| 7.4.1 | The visual arts | 244 |
| 7.4.2 | The performing arts | 248 |
| 7.5 | Epigraphy and Linguistics | 248 |
| 7.6 | Epigraphy and Geography | 249 |
| 7.7 | Other Fields | 250 |
| 8 | Bibliographic Survey | 252 |
| 8.1 | Primary Sources: Notices and Editions of Inscriptions | 252 |
| 8.1.1 | Periodicals | 252 |
| 8.1.2 | Epigraphic serial publications | 254 |
| 8.1.3 | Anthologies of inscriptions | 255 |
| 8.1.4 | Separate monographs | 257 |
| 8.2 | Secondary Sources: Handbooks and Reference Works | 257 |
| 8.2.1 | Handbooks of epigraphy and paleography | 257 |
| 8.2.2 | Reference works, bibliographies, and lists | 259 |
| 8.2.3 | Miscellaneous studies and collections | 260 |
| Appendix | Selection of Typical Inscriptions | 262 |
| 1. | Rummindei minor pillar edict of Asoka | 262 |
| 2. | Besnagar pillar inscription of Heliodoros | 265 |
| 3. | Bharhut label inscriptions | 267 |
| 4. | Kalawan copper plate inscription | 267 |
| 5. | Sarnath umbrella shaft inscription of the time of Kaniska | 270 |
| 6. | Niya (central Asian) Kharosthi document | 272 |
| 7. | Kahaum pillar inscription of the time of Skandagupta | 273 |
| 8. | Lakkha Mandal prasasti | 275 |
| 9. | Vat Ph'u stone inscription of Jayavarman [I] | 280 |
| 10. | Baroda copper plate inscription of Rastrakuta Karkkaraja [II] | 283 |
| 11. | Tiruvenkadu temple inscription | 295 |
| 12. | Nalanda inscription of Vipulasrimitra | 297 |
| 13. | Pilgrim inscription on the Kosam pillar | 302 |
| 14. | Burhanpur inscription of Edala-Saha (Adil Shah) | 304 |
| 15. | Pabhosa Jaina inscription | 307 |
| Bibliography | 311 | |
| Index of Inscriptions Cited | 328 | |
| Index | 351 |
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