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§ 29, A.]
inscription of plate VII, col. V, the archaic Kadamba inscription of plate VII, col. XII, the Pallava inscription of plate VII, col. XX), and even in Nos. 21 and 21, A, of the Campa inscriptions from Further India. But the very peculiar appearance of the Central-Indian inscriptions of this class is due to the more or less rigorous modification of the letters by the contraction of their breadth and the conversion of all curves into angular strokes. This is best visible in the grants, figured in EI. 3, 260, and in FLEET's Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), Nos. 40, 41, 56, 81, plates 26, 27, 35, 45, among which No. 56 is represented in col. XI. of our plate VII, while col. X. offers the less carefully modified characters of F.GI (CII. 3), No. 55, plate 34. Both these inscriptions were issued in the same year from the Dharmadhikarana of the Vakataka king Pravarasena II.
INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY.
65
Traces of the influence of the northern alphabets are visible in this script just as in the western variety, and particularly in the letters ta, dha, na, and in the Matras of medial e, ai and o, which in F.GI (CII. 3), No. 81, plate 45 (not in our plate), shew the peculiar tailed northern form of the 7th and 8th centuries. But in the ligatures (see, for instance, nta, plate VII, 43, X), we meet repeatedly with the looped to and with the na without the loop, and even an independent looped ta appears exceptionally in the word snātānām (No. 55, line 7; No. 56, line 6). Medial au has the tripartite western and northern form in F.GI (CII. 3), Nos. 2, 3, 40, 81, plates 2, A, B, 26, 45, but the southern bipartite form (see dau, plate VII, 24, XI) in the Vākāṭaka inscriptions. The kha, which has a big hook and small loop, and the oblong ca with the vertical on the right, likewise agree with the southern forms. But F.GI (CII. 8), No. 2, line 17, offers once, in sulka, the northern ka without the curve at the foot.
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The other letters of this script frequently show greater or smaller variations. Our late offers a few in the case of A, ja, tha, ba and la. More have been pointed out by FLEET and KIELHORN in their editions of the inscriptions in F.GI (CII. 3) and in EI. 3. I may add to FLEET's remarks, that his Nos. 40, 41, and 81 have the angular form of ma of the later Kanarese-Telugu alphabet (see below. § 29, B, 6).
§ 29..
The Kanarese and Telugu alphabet; Plates VII, and VIII. A. The archaic variety.
[84] The archaic variety of this script is found: (a) In the west, in the inscriptions of the Kadambas of Vaijayanti or Banavasi (plate VII, cols. XII, XIII), and of the early Calukyas of Vätäpi or Badami, e.g. of Kirtivarman I. and Mangalesa (plate VII, col. XIV), Pulakesin II., and Vikramaditya I. (sometimes). (b) In the east, on the Salakayana plates, and on those of the first two Calukyas of Vengi, Visnuvardhana I. and Jayasimha I. (plate VII. col. XVII). The date of the Salankayana' plates, which used to be assigned to the 4th century, is uncertain, The Kadamba grants probably belong partly to the 5th and partly to the 6th centuries; for, Kakusthavarman, who issued the oldest known record, was the contemporary of one of the Imperial Guptas, probably of Samudragupta, and his descendants all ruled before the overthrow of the Kadamba kingdom by Kirtivarman I., between A. D. 566-67 and 596-97. The archaic Calukya inscriptions fall between A. D. 578 and about 660.7
During this period, the characters of the western and eastern documents do not differ much. The alphabet of the Salakayana plates agrees very closely with that of plate VII,
1 BERGAIGNE-BARTH, Inscriptions Sanskrit du Campa et du Cambodge, 2, 23; the Campa inscriptions show the northern ka and ra without ourves at the end.
2 FLEET and KIELHORN assume that the writers by mistake put na for ta and vice versa.
Compare facsimiles of Sälankayana inscriptions at B.ESIP. plate 24; IA. 5, 176; EI. 4, 144; of Kadamba inscriptions at IA. 6, 23 ff.; 7, 38 ff.; J.BBRAS. 12, 300; of Western Calukys inscriptions at IA. 6, 72, 75; 8, 44, 237; 9, 100; 10, 58; 19, 58; and of Eastern Calukya inscriptions at B.ESIP. pl. 27.
B.ESIP. 16, pl. 1.
FLEET, LA. 20, 94.
See FLEET's dates of the Calukyas, EI. 3, table at p. 2; IA. 20, 96.
Academy, 1895, 229. B.ESIP. pl. 1.
