North Indian Inscriptions

THE SIDDAPURA EDICTS OF ASOKA.

inscriptions belong to the Northern or Kharôshṭri alphabet, and that the last sentence gives the name of the writer.

......The inscriptions are incised on three different rocks in the neighbourhood of the village of Śiddâpura, which is the head-quarters of a sub-division of the Moḷakâlmuru tâlukâ of the Chitaldroog district in the Mysore state. On their exact position, size, and state of preservation see Mr. Rice’s Report, pp. 1-3. With respect to their palæography I would make the following additions to his remarks (op. cit. p. 3) :―

......1. The type of the letters comes nearest to those of the Girnâr version of the Rock-Edicts ; where, in particular, we have the same wavy ra, and the same contrivances for expressing groups with ra, which appear in prâṇesu drahyitavyaṁ (No. I. l. 9), as well as pta, which must be read tpa. And it may be noted that, in later times too, a similar close connection is observable between the letters of the epigraphical documents from Gujarât or Kâṭhiâvâḍ, and those from the south of India, The land-grants of the Traikûṭakas, of the Gurjaras, and of the rulers of Valabhî all show characters of the Southern type.

......2. The particular uncouth form of ma, with its abnormally large upper limbs, re-occurs in the inscriptions on the crystal prism from the Bhaṭṭiprôlu Stûpa.

......3. The â-stroke, turned upwards, to which Mr. Rice calls attention, occurs also in the Kâlsî version of the Rock-Edicts and elsewhere. In addition, the curious â-stroke, bent downwards at the end, in ñâtikesu (No. I. l. 11) deserves to be mentioned. I do not remember any other sign exactly like it in the old inscriptions. There are also a few other letters, resembling those in the later inscriptions, e.g. the cursive a in amisâ (No. I. l. 3), and the tu in No. I. l. 4. With respect to the e of ekaṁ (No. I. l. 2), which consists of two strokes only, I should say that it has been left incomplete by accident, because it is the only letter of its kind. Every other e has three strokes.

......4. The first numeral sign is indeed, as Mr. Rice states, partly different from those found in the Sahasrâm and Rûpnâth versions, and this difference furnishes further proof for the assertion that local varieties of the Southern alphabet existed in the times of Aśôka, and that hence this alphabet must have had a longer history.

......Finally, I have to point out that the Northern or Kharôshṭrî letters exactly agree with those of the Mansehra and Shâhbâzgarhî inscriptions. The peculiar colophons of each of the three inscriptions prove beyond doubt that the manuscripts of all three were written by the same scribe, Paḍa. Nevertheless, there are some verbal differences in the texts, as well as omissions and erroneous repetitions. The latter two kinds of mistakes occur exclusively in Nos. II. and III. and are more numerous in No. III. than in No. II. It almost looks as if Paḍa had written No. I. first and then had become tired of recopying the documents. The verbal differences like hevaṁ âha (No. II. l. 3) instead of âṇapayati (No. I. l. 1), and sâvite (No. II. l. 11) instead of sâvâpite (No. I. l. 5) are just such as the clerks and copyists of modern India are very apt to introduce. The use of the two alphabets probably indicates that Paḍa was proud of, and wished to exhibit, his accomplishments. In fact, his winding up with lipikareṇa in Northern characters reminds one of a trick of schoolboys, who sometimes sign their books in Greek or other foreign characters. The use of the Northern characters may further be taken to indicate that Paḍa once served in Northern India, where the Kharôshṭrî alphabet prevailed ; for it is even now most unusual to find professional writers who know other alphabets than those used in their native districts, while the epigraphical evidence available at present is not favourable to the assumption that the Kharôshṭrî alphabet was commonly known all over India.

......The language of the inscriptions offers, it would seem, a mixture of North-Eastern and southern forms. To the dialect of Magadha belong the substitution of e for Sanskṛit as (e.g. in girîte and piye), the word munisâ, and perhaps also chu. With the peculiarities of the Southern Prâkṛit agree the use of ra, instead of which the ancient Mâgadhî would have required la,