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FOREWORD
inscription, leaving no room for doubting the intention of the abbreviator. These two inscriptions which I more or less stumbled upon are no. 527, where the abbreviation दो is used after the full form दोशी । दोसी is used twice and no. 673 where, likewise it is first at-it and later #l. A close look at the variety of abbreviations used in these inscriptions will convince any one of their arbitrary use. But for the context, it would be impossible to decide what they stand for. The only determinant is the limitation of space and under thi's constraint the authors of the inscriptions or their engravers chose to abbreviate any word with its first letter in the hope that the readers would be able to make out the intended words. The result is most of these become clear enough from the context but some remain problematic, if not enigmatic. For instance at after a place name (e.g. uscitato in no.320) can easily be inferred to mean al 14; prefixed thrice to names of acaryas (no.671) can be safely (?) presumed to stand for 4667, få following the name of a wife with another female name closely following it leaves no doubt that it points to the second wife. (cf. 910 Hequ fão cha Ua.... in no. 541 and 40 kg foo e..... in no. 1050). This is made quite patent in no.475 which uses fão To before the name of the second wife. But the sailing is not so smooth in all cases. To cite three random instances, I could not unravel the secret of the a used four times with every male name in no. 584 and the mi prefixed to all names male as well as female in no. 1050 nor the o used before male names in nos. 125, 129 etc., though I am aware of the convention among scribes to indicate a pause with this letter. There are others which are doubtful or ambiguous like
o, which stands for a HE and Han; I which usually stands for H19 (e.g. nos. 107, 1120 etc.) but is used as an abbreviation for Hie in no. 1220 and so on. It is not clear whether the abbreviation i used in a number of inscriptions(e.g. nos. 643, 645, 648, 651 etc.) stands for få as in no. 1254, which uses thrice first as an abbreviation and the full form its before the name gigi at the end. A typical case of arbitrary abbreviation is go to go farfari in no. 728, which, I believe, is the contracted form of E-76-90-ffie, though I cannot swear by it. 3. Adaptability of Sanskrit - Special devices of the inscriptional language :
I have lingered a whit too long on the possible ramifications of the study of these inscriptional abbreviations only to drive the point home that the Sanskrit language has stood up to the needs of different types of demands made on it for different purposes and situations and demonstrated its capacity
