This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Sanskrit, Prakrit, and modern Indo-Aryan languages, including donative, dedicatory, panegyric, ritual, and literary texts carved on stone, metal, and other materials. This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives. Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian world, constituting the most detailed and accurate historical and chronological data for nearly all aspects of traditional Indian culture in ancient and medieval times. Richard Salomon surveys the entire corpus of Indo-Aryan inscriptions in terms of their contents, languages, scripts, and historical and cultural significance. He presents this material in such a way as to make it useful not only to Indologists but also non-specialists, including persons working in other aspects of Indian or South Asian studies, as well as scholars of epigraphy and ancient history and culture in other regions of the world.
Epigraphic Evidence is an accessible guide to the responsible use of Greek and Latin inscriptions as sources for ancient history. It introduces the types of historical information supplied by inscriptional texts and the methods with which they can be used. It outlines the limitations as well as the advantages of the different types of evidence covered. Epigraphic Evidence includes a general introduction, a guide to the arrangement of the standard corpora inscriptions and individual chapters on local languages and native cultures, epitaphs and the ancient economy amongst others.
During the past four decades an impressive corpus of manuscripts and epigraphical material in Thailand, Laos, and adjacent Tai-speaking areas has been surveyed, documented, and digitized. Scholarly interest in this material has not been restricted to philological and historical studies of the texts contained in manuscripts and inscriptions but has extended to its material aspects, which encompass manuscripts written on palm-leaf, various forms of paper, cloth, bamboo, and other organic material, and inscriptions on stone, metal, and wood. In Manuscript Cultures and Epigraphy of the Tai World, Volker Grabowsky seeks to explore the production, use, and transmission of manuscripts both as containers of traditional knowledge and as objects used in daily life, rituals, and ceremonies. Particular emphasis is given to the relationship between manuscripts and inscriptions, as both have influenced each other to no small degree. Through a comprehensive look at the Tai-language literature's chronological and synchronic development, readers will learn the social importance of these literary productions.
The Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), Chennai, was established in 2007 to implement the Central plan schemes for promoting research in Classical Tamil. One of the first, and still the largest, projects implemented by CICT is the documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and heritage monuments on HD Video and High Resolution still imagery, indexed, catalogued and held as a digital archive by CICT. Even as this long-term programme got under way, I was invited by CICT to prepare a revised edition of my book, Early Tamil Epigraphy (first published in 2003), dovetailing it with the ongoingdocumentation of Tamil-Brāhmī and Vaṭṭeḻuttu stone inscriptions. I need hardly add that I accepted the offer with alacrity as it would bring to fruition the project I had only dreamt about for long. I am thankful to the Director, CICT, for implementing the scheme for documentation of the earliest Tamil inscriptions and for including the revised edition of my book within its scope.The CICT entrusted the execution of the project to the Centre for Plants, People and Ecosystems (CPPE), Chennai, a non-profit organisation working in this field. The CICT project team constituted by CPPE started the work in December 2007 and successfully completed most of the field work by the end of 2010. I am thankful to M. V. Bhaskar, Project Coordinator, and his colleagues for the efficient execution of the project. I was happy to inaugurate the work at Mamandur, but could not participate in further field work due to health problems except once at Pulankurichi in 2010. The team led by Bhaskar completed the field work on its own with a copy of Early Tamil Epigraphy to serve as the guide to locate the caves andinscriptions.I was shown the results of the photographic survey for verification of the in situ delineations, enlarged on the computer screen. I could hardly believe my eyes, looking at the amazingly clear photographs of the caves and the remarkable accuracy of the delineations. I could sense that it is not only the superior technology but also the total involvement of the team in the project, which produced such excellent results. I am proud to have been a member of the team, though working from only behind the scenes. It has taken me more than two years (2010 - 12) to complete editing the present publication whichincludes only the Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions. I must again thank Bhaskar for personally undertaking the laborious and time-consuming task of typesetting the revised edition afresh in Unicode.The present publication marks the culmination of my study of Tamil epigraphy extending over more than half a century (1958 - 2012). Looking back over this long period, I remember with gratitude Dr. C. Sivaramamurti, who initiated me into the discipline of epigraphy, Prof. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, who suggested to me to take up the research on the cave inscriptions of Tamilnadu, and K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer, the founder of Tamil-Brāhmī epigraphy, whom I had the good fortune to meet in 1966 and receive his blessings for my successful decipherment of the Tamil-Brāhmī cave inscriptions of the Caṅkam Ageat Mangulam and Pugalur. It is time to hand over the baton to younger scholars in the field.Iravatham Mahadevan
Collected Studies CS1070 The present book collects 31 articles that Jacques van der Vliet, a leading scholar in the field of Coptic Studies (Leiden University / Radboud University, Nijmegen), has published since 1999 on Christian inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia. These inscriptions are dated between the third/fourth and the fourteenth centuries, and are often written in Coptic and/or Greek, once in Latin, and sometimes (partly) in Arabic, Syriac or Old Nubian. They include inscriptions on tomb stones, walls of religious buildings, tools, vessels, furniture, amulets and even texts on luxury garments. Whereas earlier scholars in the field of Coptic Studies often focused on either Coptic or Greek, Van der Vliet argues that inscriptions in different languages that appear in the same space or on the same kind of objects should be examined together. In addition, he aims to combine the information from documentary texts, archaeological remains and inscriptions, in order to reconstruct the economic, social and religious life of monastic or civil communities. He practiced this methodology in his studies on the Fayum, Wadi al-Natrun, Sohag, Western Thebes and the region of Aswan and Northern Nubia, which are all included in this book.
Epigraphic Evidence is an accessible guide to the responsible use of Greek and Latin inscriptions as sources for ancient history. It introduces the types of historical information supplied by inscriptional texts and the methods with which they can be used. It outlines the limitations as well as the advantages of the different types of evidence covered. Epigraphic Evidence includes a general introduction, a guide to the arrangement of the standard corpora inscriptions and individual chapters on local languages and native cultures, epitaphs and the ancient economy amongst others.
