Epigraphia Indica Vol 01

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 14

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
SANSKRIT AND PRAKRIT INSCRIPTIONS. The great importance of Indian Inscriptions as a means of illustrating and completing our knowledge of the history of the country, fixing the eras of its dynasties, the character of its peculiar land tenures, the derivation and developement of its various alphabets, and other subjects of like importance, has been long since recognised by Colebrooke, Prinsep, Lassen, and all orientalists. Of late years, increasing attention has been given to the study of these ancient records-preserved on stone and copper-plates, and which primarily served as the title-deeds of grants and endowments made by kings or chiefs to temples and religious personages or communities. Most of the earlier collections of transcripts made from these documents were only eye-copies, and, liowever carefully prepared, were but very rarely sufficiently correct and reliable for purposes of critical translation. The late Sir Walter Elliot, K.C.S.I., LL.D., when in the Madras Civil Service, was the first to employ, to any large extent, the system of taking direct ink impressions from oopper-plate grants. Many of these were afterwards pub. lished by me in The Indian Antiquary. This method, like photography, provided the means of supplying to scholars facsimiles of the documents free from clerical errors or modification of the alphabets. Methods of taking direct inked impressions from stone, also, have been devised; and estampages can thus be taken, having the advantages of presenting a direct reading of the inscription on the inked face and & mould from it on the back, so that the slightest scratch on the stone is retained on a carefully taken impression. With such a copy before him, the epigraphist can leisurely decipher the inscription in his study with about the same accuracy and facility as if he had the lithic record before him.
The inscriptions in the following pages have been prepared from such impressions and edited by most competent scholars, with commente, texts, and translations. The publication of them will thus place in the hands of European and other students of Indian history and antiquities, trustworthy texts and versions of the inscriptions collected by the Archeological Surveys,' and will be a reliable source from which to obtain the materials required in the prosecution of their studies in the historical, antiquarian. philological, or other branches of Oriental research. Selected facsimiles of the more notable inscriptions, on a reduced scale, accompany the texts.
J. B. For some loooont of the collections made and the work done in this department of research previous to 1878, se my remarks in the Introduction to Pai Sanskrit and Old Canarere Inscriptions, arranged by Mr. J. 7. Flest, Bo.C.8
The Loxoriptions of the Madru Burvey will be published separately by Dr. B. Hultsaob.