Indian Epigraphy SOUTH ASIA RESEARCH Series Editor Richard Lariviere A Publication Series of The University of Texas Center for Asian Studies and Oxford University Press THE EARLY UPANISADS Annotated Text and Translation Patrick Olivelle INDIAN EPIGRAPHY A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages Richard Saloman A DICTIONARY OF OLD MARATHI Anne Feldhaus DONORS, DEVOTEES, AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu Leslie C. Orr INDIAN EPIGRAPHY A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages Richard Salomon New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1998 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paolo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1998 by the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salomon, Richard. 1948— Indian epigraphy : a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages / Richard Salomon. p. cm. -— (South Asia research) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-509984-2 I. Inscriptions, Indo-Aryan. I. Title. II. Series: South Asia research (New York, N.Y.) CN1150.S25 1996 491M—dc20 95-31756 35798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Dedicated to the memory of Professor D. C. Sircar This page intentionally left blank Preface This book is intended to provide a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Indo-Aryan languages. This is a vast body of material, comprising tens of thou- sands of documents over a chronological range of more than two millennia and a geographical range including not only "India" in the broadest traditional sense of the term but also much of southeast, central, and other parts of Asia. The range of the material is equally broad in terms of languages, scripts, style, and content. I have attempted to survey the entire corpus of inscriptions in all the Indo-Aryan languages and to present it in such a way as to make it accessible not only to specialists in the field but also to nonspecialists, whether they be Indologists working in other sub- fields (e.g., South Asian historians) or scholars involved in epigraphic and related studies in other regions of the world. I have therefore tried to strike a balance be- tween the needs of the nonspecialist, who may be less interested in technical details, and the desire to present a complete and accurate picture of this complex subject; where it proved necessary to choose between the two, I preferred to err on the side of completeness. This book is intended to supplement rather than to supplant previous general studies of Indian epigraphy, especially Indian Epigraphy by D. C. Sircar, whose ex- pertise in this subject no one could hope to exceed or even equal. Nonetheless, I have felt it worthwhile to attempt a more up-to-date survey (that of Sircar being now more than thirty years old), one which will present the field from a somewhat broader and less specialized point of view. It seems advisable to state clearly at the outset the limits which have been set for this study. This is, first of all, a book on epigraphy, not paleography; that is to say, it is mainly concerned with the study of inscriptions and their contents rather than with the forms, varieties, and historical development of the scripts in which they are writ- ten.1 The term "inscription" is interpreted in the loose sense in which it is tradition- ally used in Indie studies, including documents written in ink on such surfaces as clay, wood, or skin (the German Aufschrifi) as well as inscriptions proper, that is, 1. The terms "epigraphy" and "paleography" are used here in the senses in which they are tradi- tionally employed in Indie and Semitic studies (see G. S. Gai, Introduction to Indian Epigraphy, 1-3, and Joseph Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography [Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1987], 6) rather than as they are used in classical studies, wherein "paleography" is generally used to refer to the study of texts written in ink, as op- posed to those engraved on hard surfaces. viii Preface writing carved into hard surfaces such as stone or metal (Inschrift). Also following traditional Indological usage, which is convenient if not strictly logical, I have in- cluded inscriptions on seals and sealings but not those on coins, the latter falling into the province of the related but separate field of numismatics. And although paleog- raphy as such (in the sense just defined) is not a major focus of this book, it seemed undesirable, indeed, impossible to discuss inscriptions without any reference to writing at all. I have therefore limited myself to a general discussion of the history and de- velopment of Indian writing and scripts (see chapter 2), without attempting to trace in detail the historical development of the many Indie scripts. (For further informa- tion on paleography proper, the reader is referred to the various sources mentioned in section 8.2.1.) As for the epigraphic materials to be treated in this book, it should be empha- sized that the limits are linguistic rather than geographical or chronological. Any and all inscriptions in Indo-Aryan languages, whether ancient or recent, from India2 or from other lands, are treated as relevant to this study. Indian inscriptions in languages of other families—mainly Dravidian languages—are not treated in detail, although I have not felt constrained to apply this exclusion too rigidly since the fields of Indo- Aryan and Dravidian epigraphy are closely related and even overlap to a consider- able extent (for example, in the many bilingual Indo-Aryan/Dravidian inscriptions). This limitation is admittedly primarily one of convenience; although a complete study of Indian inscriptions ideally would cover material in Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and other language groups, from a practical standpoint the material involved is so vast that it would hardly be possible to do it justice in one volume. In any case, I am not qualified to treat Dravidian inscriptions adequately. In point of fact, most previous studies of Indian epigraphy have similarly concentrated on one or the other of the two major bodies of material, namely, Indo-Aryan or Dravidian, presumably for simi- lar reasons, though they have usually not explicitly admitted that they are doing so. I have followed a similar course with regard to the study of the still undeciphered writing of the Indus Valley civilization; that is to say, I have mentioned it only in passing (see sections 2.1.2,2.2.3.1, and 2.2.3.3) insofar as it may relate to the scripts of the historical period. Should the language represented in these inscriptions even- tually turn out to belong to the Indo-Aryan (or Indo-European) group, they would of course have to be added to the present corpus, but for the meantime they must be treated as a separate body of unidentified material. I have benefited from the assistance of so many individuals and institutions that it is impossible to give them all the credit they are due. Those individuals who have made particularly important contributions include G6rard Fussman (College de France), Oskar von Hiniiber (University of Freiburg), Jason Neelis (University of Washing- ton), K. R. Norman (Cambridge University), David Pingree (Brown University), Rosane Rocher (University of Pennsylvania), and David Shulman (Hebrew Univer- sity). They either read the entire manuscript or substantial portions and freely shared 2. The term "India" is used here as elsewhere in this book (cf. 4.3.7) to refer to traditional India, roughly corresponding to the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Preface ix of their erudition in their respective specialties, thereby remedying, in part at least, my own shortcomings. Dr. Nalini Balbir of the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris) provided very helpful comments on Jaina materials. Especially important were the contributions of William Arraj (Seattle), who read the entire manuscript with scrupulous care and offered many valuable suggestions. Timo- thy Lenz (University of Washington) skillfully assisted in the preparation of the maps. I wish to express my sincere graditude to them and the many other persons who helped me—and to apologize for being unable, in some cases, to make full use of their sug- gestions due to limitations of space, time, and my own abilities, but certainly not as a result of any disregard for their assistance. Among the many libraries whose resources facilitated the preparation of this book, special mention must be made of my home institution, the University of Washing- ton, several of whose staff members went to great lengths in assisting me in various ways and whose skill and patience vastly facilitated the entire undertaking. Deserv- ing of special thanks are Irene Joshi, South Asia librarian; Marie Noelle Deseilligny, reference librarian; and the entire staff of the interlibrary borrowing service. I must also express my sincere appreciation to the institutions which saw fit to support the research for this book: the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Graduate School Research Fund of the University of Washington. To these institutions, and to all of the individuals who have assisted or expressed interest in this project over the many years it has taken to complete, I am also grateful for their patience. Finally, a word of thanks to my friends and colleagues in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, who helped in so many ways in this project, not least of all by their long-lasting interest, support, and patience. Seattle, Washington R.S. April 1996