Indian Epigraphy

In this paper the authors discuss several new inscriptions from a medieval site named Barha Kotra in Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh. The site lies about 1 km south of the Yamuna river. The existing temple at this site is dedicated to Lord Shiva under the name Karkota Naga. The temple can be dated to circa 10th century CE stylistically. However, all the inscriptions presented here are from much later periods in three different scripts viz. Nagari, Devanagari and Kaithi. This site is witnessed of nearly 500 years of the sequential development of Kaithë script, which holds significant role from an epigraphic prospective of Kaithi and others scripts.

This paper studies a set of inscriptions engraved on the wall in the cave of Durgā Māta temple surroundings in Chunnār, locally called Durgā kōh. These inscriptions, written in Brāhmī, late Brāhmī, early Nāgarī and Nāgarī scripts in Sanskrit and local dialect, seems to record the names of pilgrims.

This article, based on a presentation at the 11th Red Sea Conference in Barcelona, examines aspects of Late Antique Berenike urbanism through the lens of the city’s religious buildings. An in-depth analysis of the system of cardo and decumanus streets, public squares, and residential spaces is put next to the religious buildings assembled into the urban framework. The main urban axes created by linking the spaces between the Temple of Isis, the Church Complex, through the monumental tetrastylon to the vast
Northern Complex or the still-enigmatic Late Roman Harbor Temple show a remarkable picture of the late city. Controlled and administered most likely by the local Blemmyes people, the city is surprisingly classical in its urban layout and the architecture of its public and religious buildings. At the same time, the Berenike of that time takes on an exotic character when we take a closer look at the interiors of the temples. Thanks to a careful analysis of the furnishings of the religious buildings, it was possible to grasp some common elements characteristic of the cults of the inhabitants of the Late Antique city. Mysterious rituals in the Horus Shrine, votive offerings made of cowrie shell deposits, royal inscriptions of Blemmyes kings are just a small preview of all the richness of the local and international inhabitants of Berenike. The article is the result of compiling the data from the last six years of excavations at Berenike and also comparing it with existing knowledge of the city. This is the first such comprehensive approach to the subject of the functioning and nature of this international harbor on the spice route during the Late Antique period.

The women I will discuss in this article are known solely from inscriptions and no other source. In this article, I will introduce the royal dynasty of the Ikṣvākus that these women were part of or linked to and discuss the women and how they lived, exploring what we can ascertain from the inscriptions. I will focus on religious aspects, and in so doing hope to demonstrate the extent to which epigraphy enhances our knowledge of otherwise unknowable aspects of the lives of ancient women.

Kausambi (modern Kosam, Uttar Pradesh), capital of the Vatsa mahajanapada, is among the most extensively excavated early historic cities in the Ganga-Yamuna doab. This paper synthesizes textual, epigraphic, and archaeological data. Chinese pilgrims Faxian (c. 405 CE) and Xuanzang (c. 636 CE) recorded a fortified city with multiple monasteries, notably Ghositarama. Excavations by G. R. Sharma (1949-1967) revealed ramparts, a palace, and a southeastern monastic quadrangle. The key anchor is the Phagula Buddha-footprint slab (Ghosh, 1963), a 1st-2nd century CE donation naming 'Budh-avase Ghoshit-arame.' Read with Malalasekera (1937)-'A monastery in Kosambi, built by Ghosita for the use of the Buddha and the monks' (p. 828)-and his note that 'Thirty thousand monks from the Ghositarama... were present at the foundation of the Maha Thupa at Anuradhapura' (p. 828), the slab confirms living memory. Sinhala historiography preserves the same tradition (Welivitiye Soratha, 1965).

ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯದ ಸ್ತಂಭಕಾವ್ಯ ಅಂತರ್ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ — ಪದ್ಯ ೧೧ರಿಂದ ೨೦ರವರೆಗೆ

ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯದ ೧೧ರಿಂದ ೨೦ರವರೆಗಿನ ಈ ಪದ್ಯಗಳು ಕೇವಲ ಕಾವ್ಯಭಾಗಗಳಲ್ಲ; ಅವು ಅಕ್ಷರ, ಅಂಕ, ಶೂನ್ಯ, ಅನಂತಸಂಖ್ಯೆ, ಜೈನ ತತ್ತ್ವ, ಅನೇಕಾಂತವಾದ, ಅಂಕಾಕ್ಷರ ವಿಧಾನ ಮತ್ತು ಗುಪ್ತ ಗಣಿತಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಗಳ ಆಳವಾದ ಸಂಯೋಜನೆಯನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸುತ್ತವೆ. ಈ ಭಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಮುದೇಂದು ಮುನಿಗಳು ಜೈನ ಧವಲ ಪರಂಪರೆಯ ಶುದ್ಧಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಆಧಾರವನ್ನಾಗಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು, ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಂಕಿಗಳ ಮೂಲಕ ಅನಂತ ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಹೇಗೆ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿಡಬಹುದು ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ಸೂಚಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಪದ್ಯ ೧೧ರಲ್ಲಿ ಧವಲ, ವಿಜಯಧವಲ, ಮಹಾಧವಲ ಮುಂತಾದ ಜೈನ ಜ್ಞಾನಗ್ರಂಥಗಳ ಪರಂಪರೆಯನ್ನು ನೆನಪಿಸಿ, ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯವು ಶುದ್ಧ ಜ್ಞಾನಮಂಡಲವೆಂದು ತೋರುತ್ತದೆ. ಪದ್ಯ ೧೨ರಿಂದ ೧೪ರವರೆಗೆ ಸೊನ್ನೆಯ ಮಹತ್ವವನ್ನು ವಿಶಿಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ವಿವರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಸೊನ್ನೆ ಹೊರಗೆ ಶೂನ್ಯವಾಗಿ ಕಂಡರೂ, ಸರಿಯಾದ ಸ್ಥಾನದಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂಕಗಳ ಮೌಲ್ಯವನ್ನು ಅನಂತವಾಗಿ ವಿಸ್ತರಿಸುವ ಶಕ್ತಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡದ ಒಂದುರಿಂದ ಒಂಬತ್ತರವರೆಗಿನ ಅಂಕಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಸೊನ್ನೆ ಸೇರಿ ಅನಂತ ಸಂಖ್ಯಾವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಯನ್ನು ಹುಟ್ಟಿಸುತ್ತವೆ ಎಂಬುದು ಈ ಭಾಗದ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಗಣಿತತತ್ತ್ವ.

ಪದ್ಯ ೧೫ರಲ್ಲಿ ಕರ್ಮಕ್ಷಯವನ್ನು ಅಸಂಖ್ಯಾತ ಗುಣಿತಕ್ರಮದ ಮೂಲಕ ವಿವರಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಜೈನ ತತ್ತ್ವದ ಪ್ರಕಾರ ಕರ್ಮಬಂಧ, ಕರ್ಮಕ್ಷಯ ಮತ್ತು ನಿರ್ಜರಾ ಇವು ಕೇವಲ ನೈತಿಕ ಕಲ್ಪನೆಗಳಲ್ಲ; ಅವು ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮ ಕಾರಣ-ಪರಿಣಾಮದ ಆಂತರಿಕ ಗಣಿತದಂತೆ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಹಿಸುತ್ತವೆ. ಪದ್ಯ ೧೬ರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಗಳ ಕ್ರಮಬದ್ಧ ಬೋಧನೆಯ ಸೂಚನೆ ಬರುತ್ತದೆ; ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಹಂತ ಹಂತವಾಗಿ ಕಲಿಯಬೇಕೆಂಬ ಶೈಕ್ಷಣಿಕ ವಿಧಾನ ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ಅಡಗಿದೆ.

ಪದ್ಯ ೧೭ರಲ್ಲಿ ಅನೇಕಾಂತವಾದದ ನಿಜಸ್ವರೂಪವನ್ನು ತೋರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಅನೇಕಾಂತ ಎಂದರೆ “ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಸರಿ” ಎನ್ನುವ ಅರಾಜಕ ದೃಷ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲ; ಅದು ನಯ, ನಿಯಮ, ವಿವೇಕ ಮತ್ತು ಸರಿಯಾದ ದೃಷ್ಟಿಕೋನದಿಂದ ವಸ್ತುವನ್ನು ಅನೇಕ ಮುಖಗಳಿಂದ ನೋಡುವ ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರೀಯ ವಿಧಾನ. ನಯ ಮೀರಿದರೆ ಅದು ತಪ್ಪನ್ನು ತಿದ್ದುವ ಶಕ್ತಿಯೂ ಆಗಿದೆ.

ಪದ್ಯ ೧೮ರಲ್ಲಿ ಜಿನದೇವನ ಅಂಕಾಕ್ಷರ ಮತ್ತು ಜಿನಶಾಸನದ ಅನಾದಿ ಪರಂಪರೆಯನ್ನು ಹೇಳಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಮನೆ, ಮಠ, ಧರ್ಮಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳು ಕೇವಲ ಕಟ್ಟಡಗಳಲ್ಲ; ಅವು ಅಂಕಾಕ್ಷರ ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸುವ ಕೇಂದ್ರಗಳಾಗಬೇಕು ಎಂಬ ಸಂದೇಶ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಇದೆ. ಪದ್ಯ ೧೯ ಮತ್ತು ೨೦ರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯವನ್ನು ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಓದಿನಿಂದ ಅರ್ಥಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಿಲ್ಲ ಎಂಬುದು ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. “ಪ್ರಬುದ್ಧ ಗಣಿ”, “ಗಣಿತ”, “ಶಲಾಕಕ್ರಮ”, “ಕರಣಸೂತ್ರ”, “ಅರುವತ್ನಾಲ್ಕು ಶಶ್ವದಕ್ಷರ” ಇವುಗಳ ಮೂಲಕ ಈ ಕೃತಿ ಒಂದು ಗುಪ್ತ ಗಣಿತ-ಭಾಷಾ-ಕಾವ್ಯಕೋಡ್ ಎಂಬುದು ತಿಳಿಯುತ್ತದೆ.

ಒಟ್ಟಿನಲ್ಲಿ, ೧೧ರಿಂದ ೨೦ರವರೆಗಿನ ಪದ್ಯಗಳು ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯದ ಮೂಲ ಸ್ವಭಾವವನ್ನು ತೆರೆದಿಡುತ್ತವೆ: ಇದು ಕನ್ನಡ ಕಾವ್ಯ ಮಾತ್ರವಲ್ಲ; ಜೈನ ತತ್ತ್ವ, ಅಂಕಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ, ಶೂನ್ಯತತ್ತ್ವ, ಅನಂತಸಂಖ್ಯೆ, ಅಕ್ಷರ-ಗಣಿತ, ಅನೇಕಾಂತದ ನಯಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಗುಪ್ತ ಕರಣಸೂತ್ರಗಳಿಂದ ನಿರ್ಮಿತವಾದ ಮಹಾಜ್ಞಾನಮಂಡಲ. ಈ ಪದ್ಯಗಳು ಇಂದಿನ ಸಮಾಜದ “ಹಳೆಯ ಕಾವ್ಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನವಿಲ್ಲ”, “ಧರ್ಮಗ್ರಂಥಗಳು ಕೇವಲ ನಂಬಿಕೆ”, “ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಉನ್ನತ ಗಣಿತವಿಲ್ಲ” ಎಂಬ ತಪ್ಪು ಕಲ್ಪನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾದ ಉತ್ತರವಾಗಿವೆ.

This paper advances a novel historical hypothesis -the Barmak-Brahman Hypothesisproposing that the transformation of Indian civilization from Buddhist institutional dominance to Sanskrit Brahmin authority (approximately 600-1200 CE) was catalyzed by a community of Zoroastrian-Buddhist scholars from the Bamiyan-Balkh-Kandahar corridor of Central Afghanistan, who fled Islamic conquest beginning ~650 CE and entered Indian Buddhist monasteries as refugees. The central evidentiary pillar is linguistic and etymological: the hereditary high priests of the great Buddhist monastery of Nava Vihara (Nawbahar) near Balkh/Bamiyan bore the title BARMAK, which is demonstrably the Persian/Bactrian pronunciation of the Sanskrit BRAHMAN (via Prakrit BAMHAN). These priests -documented by Arab historians, Chinese pilgrims, and Islamic sources -simultaneously held Zoroastrian fire-temple heritage, Buddhist philosophical mastery, and Sanskrit literacy, making them uniquely positioned to enter India as apparently Buddhist refugees while carrying the institutional framework to establish a new priestly order. Supporting evidence includes: (1) the systematic sound correspondence between Avestan and Sanskrit (S H rule), confirming near-identity of the two languages; (2) the Sapta Sindhu / Hapta → Hindu problem -demonstrating that seven sacred waters refer to Band-e Amir lakes in the Kandahar region, not Punjab's five rivers; (3) independent travellers' accounts (Fa Hien ~400 CE, Xuanzang ~630 CE, Al-Biruni ~1017 CE, Ibn Battuta ~1333 CE) confirming the exact transformation window; (4) the Nath literary tradition (~700-1050 CE) as first Punjabi literature, showing Sanskrit rejection even 1000 years after Sanskrit's claimed dominance; (5) DNA evidence confirming Steppe ancestry in post-2000 BCE Indian populations; and (6) the cognitive science impossibility of perfect 3000-year oral preservation by small groups.

This article is based on extensive fieldwork conducted to document the historical remnants of Sira Taluk.
The paper discusses the personal visits made to over "480 villages in Sira Taluk, identifying historical traces in more than 285 villages". It covers their scientific documentation, details of their current condition, the modern methodologies utilized during the fieldwork, and the techniques employed for recording and analyzing these historical remnants

A short essay I wrote for the course Ancient India: From Indus Valley to Rise of Buddhism at the University of Oxford (Department of Continuing Education). It deals with the social and cultural impact of Jainism and Buddhism on Ancient South Asia.

Linear B preserves a productive morphological class comprising forms terminating in-NI-JO and-NI-JA, attested across personnel, occupational, territorial, and descriptor contexts at Knossos, Pylos, and Thebes. Several stems co-occur in both terminations. The forms correspond to the Sanskrit and Pāli gerundive suffixes-nīya and-ṇiya, which Martini (2025) documents across early Indian inscriptional corpora as technical administrative vocabulary dated ca. 2nd century BCE-3rd century CE. This note tables the class, correlates members to Arthaśāstra Book 2 superintendent positions where attested, and identifies six specific Linear B forms with correspondences to administrative forms in the early Indian epigraphic record.

The late tenth and early eleventh century marked a period of political transition in present-
day northern Karnataka. The Western or Kalyaṇa Cālukya dynasty had unseated their
overlords, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and the first Cālukya ruler, Tailapa II assumed the throne at
Mānyakheṭa in 973 C.E. Inscriptions from the period of Tailapa's reign reflect how this transition manifested in the administration of endowments. Many subordinate rulers
acknowledged the suzerainty of the Cālukyas but continued to use an epithet – Kaṇṇanabaṇṭa, or ‘champion of Kaṇṇa’ – identifying their previous loyalty to the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king, Kṛṣṇa III. In addition, a handful of inscriptions actually provide insight into the re-establishment or redistribution of previous temple endowments. In this presentation, I will explore both the mechanics of redistribution in these instances and the provisions that were put in place to ensure the longevity of the endowment. In addition, I will examine both patterns and anomalies in the use of benedictive and imprecatory stanzas and statements, in both Sanskrit and the local language, Kannada.

A 1007 C.E. inscription at Lakkundi near present-day Gadag in northern Karnataka records the establishment of the Bramha Jinālaya, a Jain Temple, by Attimabbe, the widow of a Western Cālukya subordinate, Nāgadēva. The inscription praises her for having commissioned 1000 manuscripts of a Jain hagiography, and having established 1500 temples before finally establishing the one in question. Simultaneously, Attimabbe also commissioned the Ajitanāthapurāṇa by court poet, Ranna. The courtly text and the inscription share common verses eulogising Attimabbe’s life and piety, as well as the military contributions of her husband and son to the foundation of the Cālukya dynasty. This presentation examines how these diverse forms of patronage placed Attimabbe at the nexus between the nascent Cālukya royal court, the patronage of Jain institutions, and the composition of courtly literature, and explores how her articulation of piety at the very foundation of the Cālukya dynasty, created a new model for Jain, lay, female donation. As a result, Attimabbe became a an idiom for the devotion and donative largesse of other Jain women in the Kannada-speaking region.

The land of Puṇḍravardhana is an old address of human civilization of ancient Indian aboriginals from very ancient time. With the advent of Vedic culture, the social formation and urban dynamics were changed in several aspects. The sources reflect the facts that the process of urbanization of this area was started in the 'Second Urbanization Phase' of India. This part of land was much more urbanized compared to other parts of eastern India. To understand the urban pattern of Puṇḍravardhana this article applied the 'Central Place Theory' propagated by Walter Christeller.

This is an important collection of essays that emerged out of a conference on the household in South Asian history, organised by Kumkum Roy and Nandita Prasad Sahai at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2011. After Sahai passed away tragically in 2013, Roy has edited the volume and dedicated it to Sahai's memory. While the history of households in South Asia has attracted some attention recently, 1 it remains a relatively neglected and under-researched area. As with many other themes in South Asian history, a discussion of long-term histories of the household and of comparative contexts has also been constrained by an exclusive focus on region and periodisation, both treated as bounded entities. This collection of essays is a welcome addition to the literature, bringing together as it does essays covering a very long period-from the mid-first millennium bce to the eighteenth century ce. The authors tap a wide range of sources: archaeological excavation reports, inscriptional evidence, the epics and Puranas, the normative dharmasastra literature, fable literature from the Pali canon, medical treatises in Sanskrit, didactic texts, textualised compositions in devotional traditions, sculpture and painting, origin legends of religious shrines, sectarian hagiographies, and judicial and revenue records from the early modern era and the early colonial era.

Education always engaged a high place in the society. It was a preliminary to one's starting his vocation as a student and to acquire Education (vidya). A much regimented life was laid down by the ancient digests for students receiving brahmanical education. By the time a boy attained the age of sixteen years, he was expected to be the master of all sciences and arts. It is held in the Nitisataka that a man devoid of education and wisdom is nothing but a beast. Different institutions had put in their efforts to educate the people during the ancient period. Temples, brahmapuris and agrahāra villages were the main centers of education consisting of poets, philosophers, disputants and orators. Rulers granted lands and some gifts for the maintenance of Vidyāmandirs and agraharās. While the instruction in the agraharas was confined to the study of the Vēdas and other traditional Sanskrit learning, in the temple provision was made for the study of several branches of knowledge including fine arts. Educational institution (matha) is a monastic establishment and was meant to propagate different religious creeds of Hinduism. The rulers and the gurus learnt not only Veda Vidhya but also learnt science education in ancient times.

This chapter looks at early history of pilgrimage in South Asia. Sacred sites that were believed to offer rewards to those who visited them have been a significant feature of South Asian religious traditions since at least the first centuries CE. This chapter suggests that some pre-Buddhist, non-Vedic religious rituals in north and central India associated with sacred trees, pools of water, and shrines, might have been objects of pilgrimage travel also in prehistoric times. The chapter analyses statements about pilgrimage in two early texts that promoted pilgrimage, the Mahāparinibbānasutta and the Mahābhārata and suggests that different forms of ritual travel associated with pilgrimage are promoted in these texts and argues that they had different roots. The chapter suggests that perhaps the pre-Buddhist, non-Vedic religious traditions were of some importance for the development of South Asian pilgrimage

Entertainers are one of the most significant professional groups in our society. It is a generic term, when someone entertained us with their performing abilities, we used to refer to them as entertainers. They are the main part of our entertainment industry. As there are several shades of entertainment, we get many types of entertainers in our surroundings. We use to divide them according to their skill or expertise. The name and the nature of the entertainers in early India have changed with time. In early India, we get the presence of entertainers in early Indian literature and visual representations. Though their representation in texts and visuals have been made by others. But in epigraphical documents specially in donative records, we have found their own voices. Courtesans and family members of the Dancer, Actor donated in donative inscriptions of Mathura (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE). From the nature of these donations, we get a clear picture of the professional groups of entertainers in early India. In this respect, the epigraphical records are very slim in quantity but large in content.

This paper is a tribute to the valiant act of Stephen Babington, a British judge appointed in Thane during the early 19th century. On 19th May 1822, he sacrificed his life while saving the citizens of Thane from an outbreak of fire in the Vajuvali area of Thane. In expression of their deep gratitude, the citizens of Thane raised a memorial to Stephen Babington.

It has long been recognised that the pedestals of Buddha and Bodhisattva statues from the ancient region of Gandhāra depict, to some extent, scenes that echo ritual practices that were normative for the region. While they have been the focus of assessments in recent years, this paper presents some of the results of an ongoing systematic analysis of 326 statue pedestals within the wider context of Gāndhārī donative inscriptions and Chinese travelogues. Dating broadly from the second century ce onwards, this paper argues that the pedestals were a new venue to visually reinforce ritual efficacy and normative practices. The paper sheds light on the conventions used on this visual frame and the actions of figures represented within them. By doing so, it demonstrates that the image corpus reflects patterns in the epigraphic corpus that lays emphasis on the individual as well as communal ritual practices of donors with both familial and non-kinship networks.

List of Hindu empires and dynasties The following list enumerates Hindu monarchies in chronological order of establishment dates. These monarchies were widespread in South Asia since about 1500 BC, went into slow decline in the medieval times, with most gone by the end of the 17th century, although the last one, the Kingdom of Nepal, dissolved only in the 2008.

This paper is based on the study of 22 inscriptions engraved on the pedestal of Buddhist images and 01 fragmentary stone plaque that were retrieved during the course of excavation at the ancient site of Sītāgārha (season 2019-20), Hazaribagh district, Jharkhand. In this paper, an attempt is made to understand the patrons who had donated the Buddhist images, with the help of inscriptions engraved on them. The study of palaeography of the inscriptions also helped in absolute dating of the structures in which the sculptures are found and it’s associated finds. Details of the locality of the site, previous researches, output of archaeological excavation is also briefed for better understanding of the archaeological context of the sculptural remains and the inscriptions engraved thereon.

For some years now some eminent Scholars such as Parpola (2015), Amano (2016), Witzel (2020) have been arguing that the officiant-patron distinction and the "orthodox" sacrificial arena might have been brought into being for the first time by the bearers of the Yajurveda culture. At the same time, since 2007 onwards, Bronkhorst has proved in many ways that not all ancient Indian institutions necessarily descended from the "Brahmanical" mainstream. In this paper, we show that even what has always been considered as an original and evergreen institution, i.e. the dakṣiṇā as priestly gift had actually been developed especially by the Yajurvedic texts in line with the Brahmins' action of "re-inventing themselves". In Candotti et al. (2020; 2021), we believe we demonstrated that the earliest occurrences of the term testify to a completely different ritual and social context. In the present article we will try to grasp the evolution of the concept in the Yajurveda through the analysis of every detail of the different versions of the same rite or prayer where the term is This contribution is also part of the PRIN 2022 project "Εntangled Chronotopes: Language, Power, Bodyscapes and Religion in the First Ten Books of the Śaunaka Atharvaveda-Saṃhitā", funded by the European Union (Next Generation EU, Mission 4, Component 1, CUP F53D23008030006). All translations are by the authors, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Only quotations of texts are accented. This paper is the result of a joint work discussed and shared by both authors. However, Maria Piera Candotti is responsible for § § 1; 3.2; 3.3; 5 and Tiziana Pontillo for § § 2; 3-3.1; 3.4; 4. We should like to explicitly recognize our debt to the anonymous reviewers, who suggested some crucial improvements.

In reference to people the Sanskrit term ‘saindhava’ typically means “a person of Sindhu.” In Tibetan ‘saindhava’ is transliterated as ‘sen dha pa,’ and it is sometimes used in a peculiar sense to refer to Buddhist śrāvakas who reject the Mahāyāna. Some of these ‘saindhava śrāvakas’ or ‘śrāvaka saindhavas’ are clearly identified as being Sinhalese; in some cases their ethnicity is unspecified. This study examines evidence of Buddhist śrāvakas in northern India during the latter period of pre-modern Indian Buddhist history. It sheds light on the presence of Theriya and Saṃmatīya monks in northeastern India during this period. It also examines use of the term tīrthika by followers of both the Mahāyāna and the Śrāvakayāna. In this case tīrthika clearly means “heretic” because it is used in intra-Buddhist polemics. This essay adds to the growing body of research which demonstrates that non- and even anti-Mahāyāna Buddhist monks were well represented during the last phase of Buddhism in northeastern India. Monks following the Mahāyāna and monks following the Śrāvakayāna interacted with each other in complex ways.

Now available online as an open access publication: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X25100943
Paper version to follow.

This paper contains editions of three new copperplate charters of the kings of Valkhā, who in the late fourth and early fifth century CE ruled a territory situated to the north of the Vākāṭaka kingdom along the Narmadā river. Ramesh and Tewari, the editors of the famous Bagh hoard of plates discovered in 1982, furnished a straightforward chronology of five successive Valkhā rulers on the basis of thirty-two plates known to them. However, one of the plates edited here flatly contradicts the sequence they proposed. It turns out that the dating of several previously known Valkhā charters is also controversial. It has been suggested by other scholars that there were in fact two kings of Valkhā by the name Rudradāsa as well as two by the name Bhuluṇḍa. A reinvestigation of old data combined with the newly edited plates confirms the former and shows a high likelihood of the latter.

This two-volume work highlights the central importance of the Āndhra region in the political, cultural, and religious history of early South Asia. It results from a decade-long project undertaking to document, inventory, and edit a new a body of over a thousand inscriptions, many of which never duly assessed as historical documents, and many unpublished to this day. The first volume presents the first ever attempt at a systematic inventory of this tragically dispersed corpus. The eleven essays gathered in the second volume, written by philologists, epigraphists, art historians, and ancient historians of India, make elaborate use of the presently available evidence and put forward new perspectives on a great variety of sources, shedding new light on issues of power, patronage, and religious pluralism in the early historic and early medieval Deccan.

This open access volume may be downloaded on: https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/71068.

A chapter in Bhūtārthakathane ... Sarasvatī: Reading poetry as a history book, edited by Marco Franceschini, Chiara Livio and Lidia Wojtczak.

The book is available as an Open Access download from http://www.fedoabooks.unina.it/index.php/fedoapress/catalog/view/715/801/3615

Many of us have sought to find substantiation in texts for historical insights or theories. Such support is commonly based on intuition arising out of a researcher’s familiarity with a body of texts, and may be illustrated by cherry-picked examples. While the underlying expertise is not to be undervalued, the approach necessarily involves a great deal of subjectivity and is prone to overlooking details that do not fit one’s preconceptions. It may be possible to reduce the ensuing potential bias, at least for certain kinds of research questions, by adopting methodology more solidly grounded in the textual evidence. This paper applies the method of thematic analysis or qualitative content analysis, widely used in the social sciences, to studying the way rulers represent themselves and others in the copperplate grants of the Eastern Cālukya dynasty. The concise style and highly formalised structure of such praśastis makes these documents very amenable to “coding,” the backbone of thematic analysis. Coding consists in the assignment of thematic labels to assertions made in the texts. Initially assigned codes may be revised repeatedly as the work progresses, and may be organised into hierarchies or levels of abstraction. Further analysis may go in various directions such as exploratory close reading guided by the identified themes, or quantitative comparisons of the frequencies with which specific themes occur in specific subsets of the text corpus. “Coding” in this sense is unrelated to “encoding” a text in a digital markup system such as TEI, but the latter (among several computer-aided methods) can facilitate the former, and becomes increasingly feasible with the growing availability of digital corpora. Nonetheless, one must neither hope for, nor dread the possibility that the computer can just do its magic instead of the researcher. On the one hand, thematic analysis, especially when involving premodern texts in a language such as Sanskrit, requires meticulous human work (and still involves human subjectivity) at the coding stage. On the other hand, positive deductions concern the level of “what is there in the texts,” and inductive hypotheses as regards the world of meanings constituted in and by the texts remain firmly in the domain of the human mind.

Studies on Buddhist Monastic Cultures is based on an online lecture series organised by the former Indology Department of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany and the Japanese Vihāra Project, supported by the Japanese Society of the Promotion of Science in 2021 and 2022.
Of the three contributions included in this volume, two address the terminology for Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in the early and middle phases of Buddhism in India and Sri Lanka. Petra Kieffer-Pülz investigates the terms vihāra, ārāma, and āvāsa in the Buddhist Pāli literature from its origins to around the 5th/6th centuries CE, focusing on the terminological shifts between the early and later texts and showing that many elements of monastic complexes were not yet mentioned in the earliest writings. Annette Schmiedchen examines the terms vihara, mahāvihāra, and vihāramaṇḍala in Sanskrit epigraphy from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages in various Indian regions, especially Gujarat, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, and explains the implications of these terminological differences. The third contribution by Shin’ichirō Hori focuses on the evidence for Buddhist monasticism in the phase of its decline in India. Based on dated colophons of Sanskrit manuscripts in Old Bengali script, Hori reveals that despite the widespread disappearance of Buddhism in India by the 13th century CE, Buddhist institutions still persisted in rural areas in Bihar until the mid-15th century CE.

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to provide new textual editions of 18 difficult early (ca. 2nd c. BCE - 3rd c. CE) Indian inscriptions, all of which are either direct copies of original administrative documents or contain portions that are copied from an original document. This includes 6 land donation inscriptions from the Ambika cetiyaghara at Junnar, 8 inscriptions from the caves at Kanheri, an inscription from a wooden pillar from the village of Kirari in Chhattisgarh, 2 fragmentary inscriptions from Mahād, an inscription from another cave at Junnar, and a Prakrit ostracon inscription found in Egypt. This is accomplished through a comparative analysis of the technical terminology of the epigraphs with that of Book Two of the Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra, the Adhyakṣapracāra “Activities of the Superintendents”. This section of the text lays out the administrative structure of the ancient Indian State in excruciating detail and is generally understood by scholars to consist largely of an earlier treatise composed in ca. 1st BCE - 1st c. CE Western Maharashtra that served as one of the primary sources in the compilation of the larger Arthaśāstra. The close correspondence between the precise technical terminology of the inscriptions and the Adhyakṣapracāra enables us to decipher difficult portions of the inscriptions that had previously eluded explanation and provides further concrete evidence for the geographic and temporal placement of the text.

History of the development of proto-regional and regional scripts in India still remains a desideratum. Among the three major writing systems prevalent in eastern India between the 7th and the 14th centuries, Gauḍī witnessed the widest geographical expanse. The name of the script was first mentioned by Al-Bīrūṇī in the eleventh century, but it came to the notice of the scholarly world only after his travel account was translated at the end of the nineteenth century. This paper argues, on the basis of a note written by Jamse Prinsep in 1836, decades before the name of Gauḍī script came to be recognized by scholarship, that Prinsep had rightly foreseen the emergence of the practice of standard nomenclature long before scholarship on early India had imagined.

This volume presents case studies from ancient civilisations that explore how different types of missing evidence (e.g. missing, contradictory or neglected evidence) affect our perceptions of ancient cultures and shape the narratives we provide. Covering Southwest Asia, China, India, Greece, Etruria, early Christianity, Mesoamerica and Central Asian Buddhism, it invites scholars to compare the situation in their own fields to the state-of-the-art in others.

Excavations at Bahaj in the Deeg region of Rajasthan have revealed thirty-nine seals and sealings spanning from the Painted Grey Ware phase to the Kushan period. The earliest examples, from PGW levels, contain pre-Mauryan Brahmi characters, indicating that the Brahmi script was in use before the Mauryan empire and likely developed indigenously. A unique jasper seal with nine religious symbols demonstrates continuity with Harappan artistic traditions, while later examples record names, symbols, and deities linked to Sanatana dharma. One sealing bears both Brahmi and Kharoshthi inscriptions-the second such instance known from the subcontinent. The Bahaj corpus refines the palaeographic sequence of northern India and clarifies the cultural and religious milieu of the early historic Braj region up to the fourth century CE.

A chapter in the history of Romanian Indology and Sanskrit Studies. Keywords: ASO (Association for Oriental Studies, during the communist regime), ISO (Institute of Oriental Studies, post-December), CEAS (Centre for Eurasiatic and Afroasiatic Studies), linked to DACOROMANICA (National Virtual Library of Romania project, apud Gallica) www.dacoromanica.ro

Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to argue that the central figure in the intellectual frame established by the Asiatic Society (Kolkata) in the early twentieth century was James Prinsep. With a formal (but incomplete) training in architecture and chemistry, he reached a level of academic excellence, in a life of just four decades, that has not been possible to surpass for generations to come. He was way ahead of his time, and beyond the limits of a polymath. Essays, communications and notes in this volume are aimed at thoroughly revisiting his time and scholarship.

Epigraphic evidence of patronage to temple-building in eastern India has been subjected to a wide range of researches, focusing on identity of patron, craftsmanship of builders and contemporary polities. While late medieval and early colonial temple inscriptions from Bengal have been widely studied, only a few comparatively early samples from different parts of northern and southern Bihar are so far known. In this essay we attempt a study of two interesting epigraphs, written in three different languages and scripts from eastern Bihar, near Bhagalpur, datable between 1808/09 and 1865 CE. Located at the celebrated Śaiva site of Bateshwar, these hitherto unnoticed early nineteenth century inscriptions, one recording the use of Faslī era, bespeak donations from different individuals echoing varying messages of patronage. In the light of their reading and interpretation, we argue that this site and the inscriptions display how culturally distinct interest groups appropriated the heterotrophic identities of space with given sacred spaces.

This paper explores the evolution of the caste system in ancient and early medieval
Bengal (c. 5th–7th century CE) through a critical analysis of copperplate inscriptions issued
during the Gupta period and its aftermath. Rather than reflecting a rigid, pan-Indian varna
hierarchy, these epigraphic sources reveal a fluid and regionally distinctive process of caste
formation shaped by landholding patterns, political authority, and religious patronage.
Bengal’s social order was characterized by the dominance of Brahmanas not only as ritual
authorities but also as agrarian elites, receiving extensive tax-exempt land grants (agraharas)
and serving as intermediaries between state power and rural society. Drawing upon key
inscriptions including the Dhanaidaha, Damodarpur, Kalaikuri–Sultanpur, Gunaighar, and
Nidhanpur copperplates this study demonstrates how caste identities were constructed,
codified, and negotiated through legal instruments and royal charters. The inscriptions
highlight the absence or marginal presence of Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, the emergence of
intermediary castes such as Kayasthas and Vaidyas, and the incorporation of local and tribal
groups into a Brahmanical framework through processes of Sanskritization. Tables,
comparative summaries, and thematic mappings are used to trace the complex interplay
between social hierarchy, occupational roles, and ritual status.

In 2022, several texts were found written on stone in the Almosi Gorge, in the mountains north of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. One mentions the name and the title of the second Kushan king, Wema Takhtu, in standard Bactrian. In terms of geographical location, this gorge today marks the northernmost evidence of Kushan dominance. Two other texts were found nearby, written in an "unknown" script. In one of them, the same name and title were soon recognized by several scholars and so this script ceased to be "entirely undecipherable". Despite the identical spelling of the name and title, some explained the language behind the text in the unknown script as non-standard Bactrian. The paper suggests a new and full reading and a circumstantial interpretation of two of the three inscriptions and asserts a general identity of the languages concerned. It is also suggested that the site was a dakhme, a place for the exposition of the dead bodies of Zoroastrians and the deposition of their excarnated bones. Wema Takhtu is mentioned because one or two of the dead left in the graveyard were his sons. J. Cribb deduced from a mutilated inscription that Wema Takhtu had advanced militarily as far east as Reh, near Kaushambi. The inscription of Reh is inspected and a restoration of the visible part is proposed. Wema Takhtu has nothing to do with the Liṅga inscription found there, which instead seems to recall the fights of advancing Scythian kingdoms against Indian defenders, particularly Khāravela of Kaliṅga.

This essay, offered in honour of Prof. Claudine Bautze-Picron, discusses three inscribed early medieval sculptures coming from Bihar in India. Two of these sculptures depict the Buddha seated in bhadrāsana, one of which is a rare bejewelled example, both seemingly performing the Great Miracle at Śrāvastī and the teaching of the First Sermon at Sārnāth. The third image represents an elusive (Buddhist?) deity named Puṇḍeśvarī. On the basis of their donative inscriptions mentioning the name Tentadīgrāma, we can now conclusively attribute this ancient locality as the modern village of Tetrawan in the Nalanda district of Bihar.

Feudalism is a term historian first used to describe the political, social, and economic system of the European Middle Ages. That system was the world of lords, vassal knights, and serfs characteristic of Europe from the tenth to thirteenth centuries. In exchange for homage and military service, vassals received land from their lords. These lands became their manors, and serfs worked them. The lords and their vassals constituted a privileged nobility, while the serfs lived in a state of servitude.

The decline of a sovereign power originates the emersion of the provincial rulers who were subjugated under him. They intend to grab the central power. Gradually, among them one can able to acquire the entire authority under his own possession and became the supreme ruler. The inscriptions are the most reliable sources to know about the social condition under these rulers, mainly the administrative, political, socioe-eonomic, socio-political, cultural as well as the religious picture of the contemporary period. Among these rulers most of them were issued the land grant charters which are the most valuable sources to get a clear idea about whole structure in their realm. It also reflects the changes in the various part of the society, mainly in the administration, land transaction procedure etc, under the supremacy of the contemporary rulers one after another. After the collapse of the Gupta emperor various independent ruler emerged from various part of undivided Bengal and ruled for a long time, issued a number of land grant charters and more or less, they were able to established their successful impression in the administrative system of Bengal (undivided) during their tenure.