South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

study in itself. My special aim has always been to edit as many records as possible, and to write up from them, and from records edited by others, such branches of the history as have engaged my interest. In the palæographic line, I have been satisfied to be able to determine for myself the age and reliability of any documents with which I might be concerned, and have been content to leave to others the systematic prosecution of that line of research. But I have also sought to help it on as far as possible, by means of the lithographs that were issued with my own articles, or that were prepared under my direction to accompany articles written by others. When, however, the science of Indian epigraphy and palæography was not very far advanced, it was thought more important to publish clear and easily legible lithographs, than to give facsimiles which an unpractised eye might find it difficult to deal with because of their including all the imperfections of the originals due to damage and decay. And that procedure necessitated a considerable amount of touching up by hand, either of the originals, or of the impressions of them, or of the proofs. The mistakes that may be made, in such a process, are well illustrated by the evolution of a cursive kh, from the old square kh of the original, in the lithograph, which was prepared in 1878 more or less under my own direction, of a record of A.D. 694,^[1]and by the introduction into Mr. Rice’s lithograph of the Âtakûr inscription, simply to suit a purely imaginary reading, of a syllable which does not exist in the original at all.^[2]

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The mischief of that procedure was recognised about 1882 ; and attention was then given to obtaining better impressions, from which there might be given, without any manipulation, mechanical facsimiles which would be absolutely faithful and reliable reproductions of typical originals. But, unfortunately, sufficient prominence was not given to the change that was then made, and to the reason for it ; and the palæographic inquiry went on, without those who were concerned in it being duly informed. The palæographic line of research has been brought to a climax, for the present, by the publication of Dr. Bühler’s volume. And it would be impossible to speak in too high terms of the way in which he sought to attain the objects aimed at in it. But it must be remarked that, great as has been the loss that we have sustained, in every line, through his sudden and premature death, it is peculiarly calamitous that he should have passed away just when so important a book had been issued by him and before it had been subjected to criticism which he himself could have attended to. The Tables of his volume are, unluckily, largely based on the manipulated reproductions that were issued in accordance with the earlier practice. And, moreover, the details of them were by no means all selected and arranged by him. For these reasons, and for others which a study of the work will disclose, we can only receive with great caution the Tables, and some of the results based on them, put forward in his book. And we must hope that someone else will be forthcoming, to carry one stage further the inquiry that he brought so far.

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I have to add a few words, by way of correction of views previously expressed by me, on the subject of the invention of the fictitious genealogy that is presented in the spurious grants.

In 1894 I suggested^[3] that it was devised by the Western Gaṅgas themselves, in imitation of the Purâṇic genealogies of other families,─ that it was started in the time of Noḷambântaka-Mârasiṁha II.,─ and that the Lakshmêshwar inscription, dated A.D. 968-69 and purporting to be of his time, seemed to represent the beginning of it in a rudimentary form, and to fix very closely the time when it was invented.

I have, in the first place, to withdraw the Lakshmêshwar inscription as a basis for any such suggestion. This record^[4] is on a stone tablet which contains, after it, records that

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^[1] See above, Vol. V. p. 155, note 8.
^[2] See page 52 above, note 4.
^[3] Above, Vol. III. p. 172.
^[4] Ind. Ant. Vol. VII. p. 101.