Indian Antiquary Vol 33

SR No.: 032525
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 481

380.j
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
69
(6) The exclusive employment of the medial u turning upwards on the right (soe, for instance, pu, 30, IX), which in earlier times is restricted to ou, tu, bhu and ku, but later appears also in su (plate VIII, 41, II, III).
(7) Finally, the appearance of the Anusvāra on the line (see ram, 36, VIII), which cannot be a survival from ancient times, but must be an innovation intended to make the lines more equal (compare page 59 above, $ 26, A, 5).
$ 30. -The later Kalinga script ; Plates VII. and VIII. [87] This script has been found bitherto only on the copper-plates of the Ganga kings of Kalinganagara, the modern Kalingapattanam in Gañjām, which in olden times was the residence of the Cota king Kbäravela and his successors (see page 39 f, above). The dates of these documents run from the year 87 of the Gangeya era. Though its exact beginning has not yet been determined, FLEET has shown that the oldest Ganga grants probably belong to the 7th century.
The signs of these documents resemble, up to the Gängeya year 183, partly the letters of the Central Indian script (above, 28, B) and partly those of the western variety, which exhibits the medial au, of the Ajanţā inscriptions (above, $ 28, A), and they show only a few peculiar forms. A specimen of the Kalinga script of the latter kind has been given in plate VII, col. XIX, from the Cicacole grant of the Gangeya year 148, in which only the Grantha-like A (2, XIX), and the ga (10, XIX) and sa (36, XIX) with carves on the left, differ greatly from the corresponding Valabhi letters. The alphabet of the Acyutapuram plates of the Gängeya year 87, which exhibits angular forms with solid box-heads, closely resembles the Central Indian writing; but its na is identical with that of the modern Nägari. The Cicacole platest of the Gängeya year 128 show in general the same type; but they offer the ordinary looped na of the north and west, and the looped ta of the archaic Grantha (22, XX, ff.). Finally, the Cicacole platest of the Gangeya year 183 come close to the script of plate VII, col, X; but their na is again that of the late Nāgari, and their medial à mostly stands above the line, -as in various northern and also Grantha docaments of the 7th and 8th centuries.
In the grants of the 3rd and 4th centuries of the Gängeya era, and in a late andated inscription, the mixture of the characters is much greater, and the same letter is often expressed by greatly differing signs. In plate VIII, col. X, from the Cicacole plates of the Gängeya year 51, that is 251, and in col. XI, from the Vizaga patam plates of the year 254, and in col. XII, from the Alamanda plates of the year 304, we find a northern A, A (1, 2, X-XII), I (3, XI), U (5, X), ka (44, XI, XII), kha (12, XI), nga (15, X), nka (15, XII); ja (18, XII), ñia (in jia, 19, X), dà (22, XII), na (24, XI, XII), dha (28, 45, XI), na (48, X). and pro ( 47, XII). The other letters are of southern origin, and belong partly to the middle Kanarese, partly to the middle Grantha, or are peculiar developments. The restricted space available in plate VIII. has made it impossible to enter all the variants for each letter. But the three different forms of ja (18, 46, and 47, X) show how very great the variations are.
Still stronger are the mixture and variations in the Cicacole plates of the Gangeya year 351,' and in the undated grant of Vajrabasta from the 11th century (KIELHORN), neither of which is represented in our plate. In the first-named document each letter has, according to 1 Compare for this paragraph B.ESIP. 15 ff.
. IA, 13, 274; 10183. 3 EIS, 128. IA. 13, 120; compare 16, 131 f.
5 EI. 3, 132 • The words data-dvaya probably have been left out by mistake after saihvatsara.
"IA. 14, 10 f.; HULTZBCH's undoubtedly correct reading of the date has been adopted by Fleer in his Dynasties of the Kanarose Distriota, Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 1, part 2, p. 297, note 8, the printed sheets of which I owe to the author's courtesy. FLRKT declares this inaoription, as well as those represented in plate VIII, cols. X, XII, to be suspicious, in my opinion, without suficient reasons.
• EL. 3, 220.