Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

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to appear. The Malayalam script has been used with slight changes in some of the Kannada and Tulu inscriptions in the southern half of the South Kanara District. This script is also called the Tulu script. Lastly, the Nagari script that was employed by the Kannada dynasties of the Rashtrakutas and the Chalukyas of Kalyani under- went certain changes and came to be termed 'Nandi Nagari'. It was in vogue during the Yadava-Vijayanagara period. For the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history, the study of inscriptions has a special importance, because it is during this early period that India's more significant contributions to the world culture were made. Of all the sources for the reconstruction of early Indian history, epigraphic records are the most important, for they provide material for the major part of what we know about the achievements of the Indians of old. The great importance of inscriptions lies in the fact that they generally offer information about personages and events of Indian history, about which nothing is known from any other source. In- scriptions as a source of Indian history are important because their authors in most cases described contemporary events. Of course, for describing the events of the past they had to depend on recorded or unrecorded tradition. From the early medieval period inscriptions of the imperial families generally incorporated a historical account of the particular dynasties from their foundation down to the date of the records. Thus, for instance, the Aihole inscription of 634 A.D. gives a fairly clear and trustworthy account of the rise and early history of the Chalukyas of Badami covering a period of about one century. Another important characteristic of inscriptions is that their texts are generally free from variant readings as they were not usually liable to modification like those of literary works which were copied and recopied by people in later times. Therefore, even casual references to historical events and personages found in epigraphic records which are either dated or can be assigned to a definite period on palaeographic grounds are considered more use- ful than similar mention in literary works which are known from late copies and whose date of composition is very often uncertain. Some inscriptions are known to describe facts which could not have been quite palatable to the patrons of the authors. Such inscriptions become the most authentic records for the impartial and objective information they furnish. Although inscriptions have contributed largely to the recon- struction of the history of ancient and medieval India, their evidence is not free from defects. The authors of inscriptions always suf- fered from a limitation of space and their treatment of history was never elaborate. Full and satisfactory information regarding an event or a personage is met with in inscriptions only rarely. In the epigraphs, history is often shadowed by poetical, eulogistic and conventional elements. As such only some of the inscriptions can be regarded as truly historical documents. A large number of in- scriptions of all ages and of all parts of the land are altogether undated. In the absence of a date in a known era, an epigraph can only be approximately referred to a period, but not to a definite date. A number of chronological problems still remain unsolved owing to this defect of epigraphic records. Fabricated genealogical accounts appearing in inscriptions and eagerness of the authors of eulogies to exaggerate the achievements of their patrons and to display their skill in rhetoric rather than in the accuracy of their statements are some other defects of the epigrapic records. Despite these defects, inscriptions form the most important source for the reconstruction of the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history. (K.M.B.)

It has been stated earlier that all the Hindu scripts presently in use in India have been evolved from the Brahmi script of the time of Ashoka The history of these scripts that have taken their present forms through various stages of development in different parts of the country over a period of 2-3 centuries is quite interesting. In North India, Kharoshthi and Brahmi scripts were employed by the Kushanas after Ashoka. In the subsequent period even though the Guptas, too, used the Brahmi script for their inscriptions, marked differences began to appear in the writing of this script as employed in the eastern, central and western regions of the empire. The Gupta Brahmi script employed in the 4th-5th centuries under- went certain changes and developed into what is known as the Kutila or Siddhamatrika script which was used in the North Indian inscriptions during the 6th-9th centuries. The Nagari script that came into vogue in the north by the 9th century and the Sarada script appearing in the inscriptions of Kashmir and Chamba region by the same time are developed from the Kutila or Siddhamatrika script. Current Kaithi, Mohajani, Rajasthani and Gujarati scripts devel- oped from the Nagari script. Likewise, the present day Kashmiri, Takari scripts and many letters of the Gurumukhi scripts developed from the Sarada script. The old Bengali or the Gaudiya script which is the source of the present day Bengali, Oriya and Maithili scripts and the script used in the inscriptions of North-east India from the 10th century developed from a variety of the Nagari. script that was in vogue in the east Indian province of Magadha. The southern scripts are developed from the Southern Brahmi script employed in the inscriptions of the western Kshatrapas and Satavahanas and those engraved in the cave temples at Nasik, Karle and other places. The script that came into vogue in the north- western provinces of South India from the 5th century is called the western variety of the Southern Brahmi. Similarly, the square- shaped script employed in the central provinces of India from the 5th century is termed the Central Brahmi. Both of these scripts appear in the inscriptions till the 8th century with regional variations at times. The script used in the present day Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh from the 5th-6th centuries is called the Telugu-Kannada script since it was in vogue in both the regions without differences. It is only from the 15th -16th century that marked differences appeared in the scripts of these two regions and the Telugu and Kannada scripts attained their independent nomenclature. The Tamil script was evolved from the Brahmi script of the cave inscriptions in Tamil Nadu and has assumed its present form through various stages of development from the 6th-7th century. The roundish script called 'Vatteluttu' that came into use in the southernmost part of Tamil Nadu and Kerala from the 6th-7th cen- tury fell into disuse after the 14th century. The present day Grantha script is developed from the Pallava Grantha script which was used in the Arcot, Salem, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai and Tirunelveli regions from the 7th century. Since there are no letters in the Tamil script for soft consonants and aspirates, soft consonant and aspirate letters of the Grantha script were used to write the Sanskrit words figuring in the texts of the Tamil inscriptions from the beginning. In the Kerala province Tamil language and Tamil Vatteluttu and Grantha scripts were generally used till the 14th century. The influ- ence of the Malayalam language is noticed in the texts of the in- scriptions from about the 13th century. Once the Vatteluttu script became obsolete inscriptions engraved in the Malayalam script, which is more or less a development from the Grantha script, begin