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Eternal India
encyclopedia
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
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.)