Indian Epigraphy

By an historian and epigraphist who stated that ​“feudalism is a misnomer in the case of India” (DC Sircar, Indian Epigraphy Glossary), this reference book is one of the best document work on inscriptions of India, dealing with ​“inscriptions and their evidence, languages in which the inscriptions are written, writing materials, the preparation and preservation of documents, copperplate grants, stanzas on bhumi-dana, systems of dating and the different eras, technical expressions including royal titles and official designations, taxes, land measures, nomenclature, etc.”. Not only why these inscriptions were written, then, but also how.

Writing (especially on stone) marks the evolution to a more sophisticated social structure and fabric, the celebration of royal dynasties, the appearance of land transactions and of taxes, the ever more complex religious rituals and obligations. Significatively, in ancient Cambodia, inscriptions inform and relate the shift from the basic ​“paddy-state” to the ​“Empire State”, obviously not forseeing the consequential imbalance. To quote Victor Lieberman [Strange Parallels, Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800‑1830 Volume 2: Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands

Lieberman, Victor. Strange Parallels: Volume 2, Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800‑1830, p 20]

In the mid- to late 1500s the chief mainland states [, including Angkor,] again collapsed, inaugurating a second generalized interregnum. This second breakdown, like that of the 13^th/​14th centuries, reflected an excess of good fortune, but in this case it was less obviously a matter of unsustainable economic and demographic growth than of insupportable territorial conquests (although one could argue that by spurring conquests, renewed economic growth inspired political overextension). In a word, the chief empires expanded too rapidly to maintain secure control over outlying dependencies. 

Lieberman, Victor. Strange Parallels: Volume 2, Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800‑1830 (Studies in Comparative World History) (pp. 19 – 20). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Contrary to the tendency of many Indian historians to emphasize the role of their own cultural area in the ​“Indianization” of Southeast Asia, the author gives us a vast geographical mapping of the different scripts and languages used in inscriptions, across the Indian sub-continent and abroad. His chapter on the spread and adaptation of epigraphic themes, vocabulary and poetry across Southeast Asia remains highly valuabe nowadays (even if new inscriptions keep getting discovered), in particular for comparing Cambodia epigraphic corpus with its neighbors on mainland in insular Southeast Asia. 

“Indian Epigraphy Abroad”

chapter VI, p 202 – 18

With the spread of Indian culture over various countries of Asia, the Indian languages and scripts were introduced
into many regions especially of Central and South-East Asia. Epigraphic and literary records in Sanskrit, Prakrit and the regional languages, written in Kharosthi, Brahmi and the derivatives of the latter have been found in Central Asia which was regarded as forining a part of the ancient Uttarapatha division of Bharatavarsa. The current alphabets of most of the South-East Asian countries are derivatives of Brahmi. 

The earliest inscriptions of these regions, with the exception of Burma and Ceylon, are in Sanskrit. While Prakrit and
Pali inscriptions are more numerous in Ceylon, Sanskrit and Pali were both used in early Burmese epigraphs. There is a general tendency among scholars to describe the alphabet used in the early inscriptions discovered in the countries of Indonesia and Indochina as Pallava-Grantha and to speak of the expansion of Indo-Aryan culture in those territories from the Coromandel Coast during the rule of the Pallavas. These views are however wrong. In the first place, the alphabet, used in the Pallava inscriptions from the 4^th to the 6^th century A.D. as well as in most of the early epigraphs of the lands beyond the Bay of Bengal, cannot be called Pallava-Grantha. It is really the Late Brahmi cammon to the southern and western parts of India. Secondly, the earliest inscriptions of Indochina and Indonesia are written in verse like the records of the Early Kadambas of the Kannada-speaking area and unlike those of the Early Pallavas. (It is interesting to note that the name Kangavarman found in the Phnom Bayang inscription of Bhavavarman II of Kambuja reminds us of such personal and geographical names as Kangavarman, Kongani, Kongudesa, Kongi-nagara found in the southern part of the Kannada-speaking area and its neighbourhood, See Journal of Greater India Studies, Vol. V, p .156; etc).

Thirdly, the box-headed alphabet used in certain epigraphs of king Bhadravarman of C.:ampa (South Annam)l is not a
characteristic of Pallava inscriptions but is generally found in the epigraphs of Central India and the Upper Deccan as well as in the Kannada-speaking western regions of South India. Fourthly, the Saka era introduced in Indochina and Indonesia about the 6^th century A.D. was never used in the inscriptions of the Pallavas, the Calukyas of Badami (from the middle of the 6^th to that of the 8^th century A.D.) being responsible for the association of the name Saka with the said era and the popularity of its use especially in the present Kannada- and Marathi-speaking areas. Fifthly, a number of South-East Asian inscriptions, parti~ularly those of the early ruling families of Arakan (Burma) and of the Sailendras of Srivijaya (Palembang in Sumatra), are written in the Late Brahmi and Siddhamatrika alphabets of Eastern India. Sixthly, geographical names like Iravati (the river Irawady in Burma; cf. the old name of the Ravi in the Punjab), Ayuthia (city in Siam; cf. the ancient city of Ayodhya in the Fyzabad District, U.P. ), Candrabhaga and Gomati (canals or streams mentioned in the Tugu inscription of Purnavarman of Java; cf. the celebrated North Indian rivers of these names), Campapura (the old capital of South Annam; cf. the same name of the ancient capital of Anga or East Bihar), Kambuja (ancient name of Cambodia; cf. the name of the Kamboja people of North-Western Bharatavarsa), etc., appear to associate the people responsible for coining the names with various areas of Northern India even though some of them may be merely lndianised forms of local names. Seventhly, there are some 111 records in these countries which definitely point to a contact especially with East India among territories outside South India.

The above facts suggest that the responsibility for the spread of Indian culture to the lands beyond the Bay of Bengal
cannot be assigned exclusively to the Pallava dominions on the Coromandel Coast. As a matter of fact, the peoples of various parts of India, especially of the coastal regions — both eastern and western, contributed to the spread, the contributions of the Coromandel Coast being only a part of the whole and those of the western areas of the Deccan as also of East India being quite considerable.

The name-ending varman generally found in the royal names of these regions is not only found in the Pallava family
but is also noticed in the ruling dynasties flourishing in other parts of India, e.g. the Aulikaras of Mandasor, the Salanka-yanas of Vengi and the Kadambas of Banavasi, all of whom began to rule from the 4^th century A.D., as well as the Gangas of Kalinganagara (from the end of the 5^th century) and the Maukharis of Gaya (5^th century). Most of the Kalinga dynasties of the 5^th century, e.g. the Matharas and Pitrbhaktas, had royal names ending in varman. It has to be noticed that none of the Varman kings of the lands beyond the Bay of Bengal appear to have flourished earlier than the close of the 5^th century A. D.

In this connection, attention may be drawn to the traditions regarding the Indian colonisers in the said countries,
e.g., the Ceylonese story of the conquest of the island by Vijaya, a great-grandson of the king of Vanga (then Southern Bengal); the foundation of Ligor ascribed to one of Asoka’s descendants, who fled from Magadha (South Bihar) and embarked on a vessel at Dantapura lying near modern Srikakulam in the ancient Kalinga country comprising wide areas of the coast lands of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh; the story preserved in the Javanese chronicles as well as in the traditions of many other islands regarding the colonisation of the lands in question by
the people of Kalinga (generally called Kling) ; a tradition of Pegu regarding the colonisation of the Irawady delta and
the adjoining coast lands of Burma by the people of the lower valleys of the Krsna and the Godavari in the eastern coast lands of the Deccan; the story in the Javanese chronicles regarding the colonisation of the island by a prince of Gujarat in 75 A.D.; etc.7

The same story is told by what we know about Indian trade with Indochina and Indonesia, vaguely called Suvarnabhumi or ​‘the Land of Gold’ in Indian literature. Thus the Jataka stories show how the people of Bengal, Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh came down to the port of Tamralipti in the present Midnapur District in South-West Bengal, whence they sailed for the eastern islands. The Periplus and Ptolemey’s Geography refer to the city of Ganga near the principal mouth of the river of that name as the main port on the Bengal coast. There were similar ports in the Puri-Ganjam region of the Kalinga country as well as in the region about the mouths of the Krsna and the Godavari. The Greek sources speak of certain ports in the coast lands of the Tamil- and Kannada-speaking areas. Bhrgukaccha (modern Broach or Bharuch) and Suparaka (modern Sopara in the Thana District) were the most famous ports in the coastal area of Western India. There is some indication that all these ports had trade relations with the lands beyond the Bay of Bengal.

I. Central Asia
Asoka’s ​‘inscriptions discovered in the Peshawar and Hazara Districts of West Pakistan are written in the Prakrit
language and Kharosthi alphabet, the latter being an Indian modification of the Aramaic script introduced in the region during the Achaemenian occupation. But an important inscription of the I\faurya king discovered in Afghanistan is the Kandaha r bilingua l epigraph which is in two versions, one in Greek and the other in Aramaic. Among later records from the Afghanistan area ·written in Prakrit and Kharosthi, mention may be made of the inscriptions of the times of Menander and Vijayamitra found in the Bajaur tribal territory and the vase inscription of Huviska’s time from Khawat (Wardak) about 30 miles to the west of Kabul. But, before the 6^th century A.D., the use of Kharosthi died not only out of the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent but also out of Afghanistan. The latest Kharosthi inscriptions in India are two small Taxila records of about the 5^th century A.D., though we have a Brahmi inscription of about the 3^rd century A. D. from the same area. The Gardez (Afghanistan) Vinayaka image inscription in Sanskrit, now in the Dargah Pir Ratan Nath at Kabul, may be mentioned in this connection. It is written in the late Brahmi alphabet of the 6^th century A.D. and is stated to have been installed by the Sahi king Khingala in the 8^th year of his reign. A late medieval inscription in Nagari characters is noticed on the left side of the Central Mihrab of the rockcut chamber near Chahil Zina (literally ​‘forty steps’) in the vicinity of old Kandahar.

A large number of manuscripts and documents written in Kharosthi with ink on wedge·shaped and rectangular
tablets of wood have been found in Chinese Turkestan. They are usually assigned to dates ranging from the 3^rd century A.D. There are also manuscripts like that of the Prakrit Dhammapada which is written in Kharosthi on birch-bark sheets and is assigned to the 2^nd century A.D. Kharosthi continued to be used in the said area till the 7^th century A.D. side by side with Brahmi which seems to have been introduced in Central Asia during the Gupta age. Among Sanskrit manuscripts in Brahmi on palm-leaf, paper and birch-bark, reference may be made to Kumaralata’s Kalpanamanditika and the Udanavarga, both of which are assignable on palaeographical grounds to the 4^th or 5^th century A.D., and the Bower manuscripts, the date of which is about a century later. Other Sanskrit manuscripts in Brahmi, discovered in Central Asia, include fragments of Asvaghosa’s drama entitled Stiriputraprakarana. 

From about the 7^th century A.D., we have records in the local dialects of Central Asia written in the derivatives of Brahmi. The earliest epigraphs in Nepal are the Rummindei and Nigali Sagar pillar inscriptions of the Maurya emperor Asoka (3^rd century B.C.) written in the Early Brahmi alphabet and Prakrit language. Early Licchavi epigraphs like the Changunarayan pillar inscription (464 A.D.) of Manadeva are written in Sanskrit and the Late Brahmi of East India, while the characters of the Sanskrit records of the later members of the Licchavi family are Siddhamatrika. Though most of the early medieval records of Nepal belonging to later dates, both epigraphic and literary, are written in Gaudiya or the East Indian derivative of Siddhamatrika, some Buddhist manuscripts are written in Bhaiksuki, while Buddhist Dhara1, etc., in Sanskrit were often written in a derivative of the
Siddhamatrika alphabet called Ranja or Ranjana which was also used for that purpose in Tibet. The Tibetan alphabet itself is a slightly modified form of Siddhamatrika. Buddhist Dharanis were written in China and Japan in the Siddhamatrika alphabet till quite recent times.

Early medieval manuscripts of a large number of works copied in East India have been found in Nepal and Tibet. Of these, the Tibetan collection contains mostly Buddhist works, while both Buddhist and Brahmanical works are found in the Nepalese collec.tion in large numbers. The discovery of many manuscripts in Nepal, which were copied in the dominions and during the reigns of the Pala kings of Bengal and Bihar, is explained by the fact that, during the early days of the Muslim occupation of Eastern India, many scholars, afraid of Turkish persecution, fled to the north, especially to the Nepal region, together with the books in their family libraries. There is also evidence to show that professional copyists of one area were often employed for copying manuscripts in the neighbouring regions.

2. Ceylon
Among the countries of South-East Asia, Ceylon’s cultural contact with India is the oldest. According to an old Ceylonese tradition, Prince Vijaya, son of the king of Simhapura in Radha (in South-West Bengal; or less probably Lata in Gujarat) and a great-grandson of the king of Vanga (then1 South Bengal), colonised Ceylon about the beginning of the 5^th century B.C. About the middle of the 3^rd century· B.C. the Maurya emperor Asoka of Pataliputra (near modern Patna) is known to have maintained friendly relations with Tamraparni or Ceylon. He is also stated to have sent to that country a Buddhist mission which converted Devanampriya Tisya, king of the island, to Buddhism together with his subjects. 

Ceylon’s contact with the Tamil-speaking region of South India, just beyond the Palk Strait, has been very close throughout the ages and, during the major portion of the 11 th century A.D., wide areas of the island formed parts of the empire of the Cholas of Tanjavur. It is therefore interesting to note that the Ceylonese language belongs to the Aryan (and not the Dravidian) group. Old Ceylonese traditions appear to suggest that the peoples of Eastern and Western India were mainly responsible for the spread of Aryanism in that land. The Ceylonese royal house often contracted matrimonial alliance with Indian ruling families such as the Pandyas of the South and the Kalingas of the East. 

The close contact of Ceylon with non-Tamil India in pre-Christian times seems to be indicated by another fact.
We know that the early independent rulers of India were satisfied with the simpler title Rajan while the Indo-Greek
kings of North-Western Bharatavarsa introduced the royal title Raja mahan or Maharaja, which was essentially a translation of the old Persian title Kshayathiya vazrka enjoyed by the Achaemenian monarchs, about the middle of the 2^nd century B. C. The earliest indigenous Indian monarch assuming the title Maharaja is king Kharavela of Kalinga who flourished about the close of the lst century B.C., while the same title appears in Ceylonese epigraphs which may be somewhat earlier in date. This seems to suggest that the title was borrowed by Ceylon from Western or North-Western Bharatavarsa which came under the influence of the Greeks. Some of these early Ceylonese records have to be read from right to left in the Kharosthi fashion. This also seems to point to Ceylon’s contact with the Kharosthi-using areas of the said part of India. The letter l in early Ceylonese epigraphs is not idicated by a diacritically marked l. as used in the Early Brahmi alphabet of the Tamil areas but by d. endowed with a diacritical mark as known from other parts of India.

The story of the introduction of Indianism in Ceylon is different from that of its spread in Indochina and Indonesia
which came under the influence of Indian merchants, adventurers and priests about the beginning of the Christian era. In many of these countries Brahmanical Hinduism not only spread earlier than Buddhism but Saivism seems to have been the dominating religious faith throughout the early period. This was not the case with Ceylon where Buddhism was always the predominant faith as it is now. Sanskrit inscriptions are rare in Ceylon, the more popular Indian languages there being Prakrit and Pali. The Ruvana valisaya pillar inscription in Late Brahmi of about the 5^th century A.D. and the Kuchchaveli rock inscription in a developed form of the same alphabet assignable to a date about the 7^th century A.D. are two of the few early Ceylonese records in Sanskrit. The Garandigala inscription of about the first half of the 8^th century A.D. is one of the early epigraphs in Ceylonese while the Sanskrit inscription from the Jetavanarama is written in the Siddhamatrika alphabet of Northern India and may be assigned on palaeographical grounds to a date in the 9^th century A.D. Many Tamil inscriptions, especially of the time of the Cola occupation of Ceylon during the 11 th century A.D., have been discovered in the island.

3. Burma, Siam (Thailand ) and Malay Peninsula
Among the early inscriptions of Burma, there are epigraphs in Sanskrit and in Pali, records in the latter being mostly Buddhist tracts. The simple Sanskrit inscriptions in verse, belonging to the Candras of Arakan and assignable to the 6^th century A.D., resemble in style the records of king Mulavarman of Borneo. It is interesting to note that, unlike Mulavarman’s inscriptions, the alphabet of these records is the Late Brahmi of Eastern India, while the said style seems to have been borrowed from South Indian epigraphs like those of the Early Kadambas of Banavasi in the Kannada-speaking region. Anandacandra’s incscription (8 th century A. D.) from the same region of Burma is a rare instance of a Sanskrit epigraph of the prasasti type found in that country, elaborate eulogies in Sanskrit verse
written in ornate kavya style being common in the other lands of Indochina and Indonesia. The inscription of Anandacandra is written in the Siddhamatrika alphabet of Eastern India.

Most of the early inscriptions found elsewhere in Burma are however written in the Late Brahmi alphabet of West
and South India. There is also evidence to prove the contact of Tamil-speaking merchants with Burma during the early medieval period. But South-East Burma seems to have closer ties with the people of East India. The Saka era was not popular in Burmese epigraphy as it is in the inscriptions of the other regions of South-East Asia. 

The earliest inscriptions in the language of the Mons (Talaings), who lived in the Irawady basin with Hanthawady
( Hamsavati, i.e. Pegu) and Thaton (Sudharmapura) as their chief cities, were found on a stone slab discovered at
Lopburi in Siam. They are written in characters of about the 6^th or 7^th century A.D. and point to the cultural contact between the two countries. A large number of Pyu inscriptions assignable to dates between the 6^th and 8^th centuries A. D. were found at Hmawsa (Prome) and Halin in the Shwebo District. The Myazedi (Myinkaba, Pagan) inscription
of the l 2^th century A.D. contains different versions, viz. Pali, Burmese, Mon and Pyu. A Pagan iriscription of about the 13^th century A.D. is written partly in the Sanskrit language and Grantha characters and partly in the Tamil language and alphabet and records the grant of certain gifts by a Vaisnava devotee of Cranganore in Malabar in favour of a Visnu temple at Pagan.

An early Sanskrit epigraph discovered in Siam is the Ban Bungke inscription (886 A. D.) of king Indravarman of Cambodia. The Sukhotai (Sukhodaya) inscriptions (Saka 1214) of king Ram Kham-heng of Siam are written in the
Siamese language and early Siamese characters.

The earliest inscriptions discovered in the Malay Peninsula are Buddhistic in nature. A prose endorsement in one of them, besides the Buddhist creed, speaks of Mahanavika (i.e. ​‘the great sailor’ ) Buddhagupta of Raktamrttika which was a locality near modern Murshidabad in South-West Bengal. The alphabet of these records is however the Late Brahmi of West and South India assignable to the 5^th or 6^th century A.D. The earliest epigraph dated in the Saka era in the Malay Peninsula is the Vieng Sa (Ligor, South. of the Bay of Ban don) inscription of Saka 697 ( 775 A. D.). 

4. Indonesia
The earliest inscriptions of Indonesia are written in Sanskrit verse. Most of the early medieval records of the area are
in the ornate ktiuya style; but their size is not big as in the case of Cambodian inscriptions. Java developed an indigenous literature originated from an intimate acquaintance with Indian literary tradition. Although the people of the area are now Muhammadans, the Indian element is still prominent in their culture. The people of Bali may be regarded as Hindu in both religion and culture.

The inscriptions of Mulavarman from Kutai in Borneo are written in Anustubh stanzas in the style of some of the
inscriptions of the Early Kadambas of Banavasi, their alphabet being Late Brahmi similar to that found in Buddhagupta’s inscription discovered in the Malay Peninsula and referred to above. Purnavarman’s inscriptions from Java are written in a similar alphabet and style, there being one stanza in Sragdhara besides others in Anustubh. They may be assigned to the 6^th century A.D. Epigraphic records of Indonesia continue in an unbroken
series from the 5^th or 6^th century down to the end of the lndo-Javancseperiod about the beginning of the 16^th century.

But the number of Sanskrit inscriptions found in Malay Peninsula and Indonesia is much smaller than that of those
discovered in Cambodia and Annam. The Indonesian inscriptions generally record pious donations or the building of temples. They usually inform us as to when and by whom a temple or monastery or image was constructed or a donation made. When a gift of land was the subject of an inscription, its boundaries were indicated, and, when privileges were bestowed their nature was written down. Usually the inscriptions give some information about the kings in whose regnal reckoning they were dated as well as about the royal officers associated with the documents together with facts throwing light on the religious, administrative and social condition of the country.

The inscriptions are generally written on stone, either slabs or rocks. But there are some epigraphs on plates of
copper, silver or gold. The earlier inscriptions are in Sanskrit in the Late Brahmi alphabet of West and South India or its local modification; but later epigraphs are mostly in the Kavi (old Javanese language) and the Kavi script which was a derivative of Brahmi developed in the land itself. The Kavi language is an admixture of Sanskrit and the local Polynesian dialect. The Sailendra kings of Srivijaya used the Siddhamatrika alphabet of East India and the Sanskrit language for their inscriptions.

The use of the Saka era became popular in Indonesian epigraphy, its earliest use being noticed in inscriptions of the
8^th century. It was probably introduced by the merchants of the Western part of the Deccan. The earliest record of Java dated in the Saka era is the Kelurak inscription of Saka 700 (778 A.D.). The Minto stone inscription of Saka 876 (954 A.D.) is in the Kavi language but has two Sanskrit stanzas at the beginning. The Pereng stone inscription (Saka 785 – 863 A.D.), written in the Kavi language, contains five Sanskrit stanzas in the Arya metre.1 Similar
is the case. with the Singasari inscription (915 A.D.) of king Da~ka written in both Sanskrit and Kavi. 

4. Cambodia
Unlike Java, Cambodia does not possess a literature influenced by Indian literary tradition. But the Sanskrit
inscriptions, dating from the 5^th to the 14^th century, found all over Cambodia, exhibit a very flourishing state of Sanskrit learning. The number of such inscriptions written in ornate style is the largest in Cambodia than in any other land of South-East Asia and many of them are quite voluminous. The use of the Saka era and of the decimal system in numbers is first noticed in Cambodia respectively in the 6^th and the 7^th century. The first of them appears to have been introduced in this region by the merchants of the western areas of the Deccan, and the second probably by those of the southern areas of the Gujarati-speaking region. In India, the decimal system is noticed for the first time in the date of the Sankheda (in the old Baroda State in Gujarat) copper-plate inscription of 594 A.D.

The study of Indo-Cambodian epigraphy began in 1879 with the decipherment of some Sanskrit records by H. Kern
from the estampages prepared by J. Harmand. A collection of estampages of such epigraphs made by E. Aymonier was published under the name Inscriptions Sanscrites du Cambodge by A. Barth and A. Bergaigne, in two Parts with a volume of Plates, the first Part edited by Barth appearing in 1885 and the second edited by Bergaingne with notes by Barth in 1893. The inscriptions in the native Khmer language in Aymonier’s collection were translated and summarised by himself in his Le Cambodge, Vols. I‑III (1901−04). A large number of inscriptions in Sanskrit and Khmer, discovered at later dates, were published by L. Finot, G. Coedes and others in the Bulletin de !‘Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient appearing originally from Hanoi. Coedes has also published a large number· of Sanskrit and Khmer inscriptions in several volumes (1937 onwards) of his Collection de textes et documents sur l’Indochine with several volumes of Plates.

Late Brahmi of West and South India, which was introduced in Cambodia, gradually underwent modification in the same way as in different parts of India. The orthography of the Sanskrit epigraphs of Cambodia exhibit the substitution of ḍ for d and ṇ for n and vice versa and sometimes even of ṇḍ for ṇd. The use of ṅ for anusvara, the change of visarga before a sibilant to the same sibilant, the occasional reduplication of a consonant before and after r as well as before v, the use of tv for ttv and of jihvamuliya and upadhmaniya for visarga before the guttural and labial surds, the occasional use of candrabindu for anusvara and the rarity of cases in which v is distinguished from b [1], etc., are some of the orthographical features of the Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia.

The language of the records is mostly correct Sanskrit, irregularities and mistakes which are few being probably due
to the scribe or engraver rather than the composer. The records, which arc generally incised on stone are mostly engraved with great care. The majority of the inscriptions are written in beautiful language in the kavya style exhibiting the authors thorough acquaintance with the metres and the rules and conventions of Sanskrit rhetorics and prosody. The Vat Thipedi inscription (Saka 832 =910 A. D.) of king Isvaravarman II is composed in the flawless Gauḍi style of composition, and it has been suggested that the author was an inhabitant of Gauḍa in East India or lived there for a long time. A large number of the inscriptions contain 50 stanzas or more, while some contain more than 100 stanzas. The Mebon (Saka 874) and Pre Rup (Saka 883) inscriptions of Rajendravarman contain no less than 218 and 298 stanzas respectively. 

The epigraphs are usually prasastis extolling the king and recording details of endowments created in favour of
religious institutions. Unlike Indian inscriptions of the prasasti type, the Cambodian eulogies of the kings often give, besides other details of historical importance, the date of accession of the reigning monarch as well as his ancestors. But, as in the case of Indian epigraphs, the eulogies usually contain a great deal of what is conventional.

The details of religious endowments, which are the subject of most of these records, supply the names of deities
(fairly large in number) worshipped in the country together with long lists of articles of daily or seasonal worship; the
utensils and other necessaries of the temples including their personnel; the accounts of temple properties both movable and immovable and the method of their management and various other matters connected with temples and throwing light on the religious, social and economic life of the people.

There are remains of a large number of temples all over Cambodia, the inscriptions relating only to some of them.
The Cambodian inscriptions are mostly of Saivite character, although there are some Vaishnavite and a few Buddhistic records. The inscriptions show how Indian culture was adopted in Cambodia by some of the local people who were semi-savages roaming about naked about the beginning of the Christian era when the Indians first came into contact with them. Some interesting facts about life in Cambodia, as revealed by the inscriptions, are the worship of Siva, Visnu and the Buddha side by side; the existence of different religious sects like the Bhagavatas, Pancaratras and Pasupatas; the adoption of the caste system dominated by Brahmanas versed in the Vedas, Vedangas and Upavedas as well as of Sanskritic names by the kings, noblemen and common people; the popularity of the Tantric religion and of well-known Tantric texts; the existence of Devadasis in the temples and of priests of the same family sometimes conducting religious rites of the royal families for centuries in succession; the creation of new castes by the king and admission of new members to a caste such as that of the goldsmiths; the popularity of the study of the works of Indian authors like Panini, Patajanli, Manu, Vatsyayima, Visalaksa, Pravarasena, Mayura, Gunyadhya and Susruta. King Yasovarman is stated to have exposed a commentary on Patanjali’s Mahabhasya, while one of his ministers was an expert in the Hora-Sastra. The same king is known to have founded 100 asramas which were a sort of convents or monasteries. The Saivas, Vaishnavas and Buddhists had their own asramas which were religious centres radiating Indian culture throughout Cambodia. 

Some of the inscriptions of Yasovarman, who flourished about the end of the 9^th and the beginning of the 10^th century A.D., are written in the Siddhamatrika alphabet while some of his other records giving regulations about asramas are both in the said alphabet and in the Cambodian derivative of Brahmi. This fact suggests that there were fresh arrivals apparently from North or East India, who were not familiar with the latter alphabet. Contact with South India during the earIy medieval period seems to be indicated by the Prasat Kandol Dom inscription of king lndravarman who flourished about the end of the 9^th century, according to which the king’s guru Sivasoma studied the scriptures at the feet of Bhagawat Sankara, apparently the great Indian philosopher of the same
name who was born in the western coast of South India. 

The Saka era appears in Cambodia in inscriptions like one of Saka 531 from Prasat Ak Yom while the decimal system of writing numbers is first noticed in a pillar inscription of Saka 605 (683 A. D.) from Sambaur. The Sambaur pillar inscription contains 21 lines written in the Khmer language which was used in Cambodian epigraphy from about this time side by side with Sanskrit. 

6. South Annam
The number of Sanskrit inscriptions discovered in South Annam (ancient Campa ) is fairly large; but the size of most of them is not very big. Many of the epigraphs are written in verse; but there are some written either in prose or in a mixture of prose and verse. They are generally on stone stelae, although some of them are engraved on rocks, stone images and metalic plates. The palaeography of the earlier records is similar to that of the Cambodian epigraphs. The Dong Duong inscription of Indravarman II, dated Saka 797 (875 A.D.), is a fairly big record engraved on the four faces of a stelae containing respectively 24, 24, 23 and 31 lines. A collection of the Sanskrit inscriptions of Campa was prepared by A. Bergaigne in 1888. It was published after his death by Barth in 1893 in the Notices et Extraits de Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale et autres Bibliotheques, Vol. XXVII, Part 1, Fasc. 2. A large number of inscriptions in the Cham language were edited by Aymonier in the Journal Asiatique, 1891. Inscriptions in Sanskrit and Cham, discovered at later dates, have mostly been published in the Bulletin de l’ Ecole Francaise d’ Extreme-Orient by scholars like L. Finot, M. Huber, G. Coedes and others. 

The earliest inscription discovered in Campa is the Vo-canh epigraph of a king of the Srimara family who flourished in the 4^th or 5^th century A. D. The Mi-son and Cho Dinh inscriptions of king Bhadravarman, who flourished in the 5^th
or 6^th century A. D., are written in the box-headed alphabet. The Saka era began to appear in the records of this area about the second half of the 6^th century A.D.

[end of chapter]

[1] anusvara, etc…, terms of Sanskrit phonetics.