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Brahmi is a writing system from ancient India that appeared as a fully developed script in the 3rd century BCE. Its descendants, the Brahmic scripts, continue to be used today across South and Southeastern Asia.
The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the expression Dhaṃma Lipi to describe his own Edicts. These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and provide the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The edicts describe in detail Ashoka's policy on dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of the problems that a complex society faced. According to the edicts, the extent of Buddhist proselytism during this period reached as far as the Mediterranean, and many Buddhist monuments were created.
The pillars of Ashoka are a series of monolithic columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected—or at least inscribed with edicts—by the 3rd Mauryan Emperor Ashoka the Great, who reigned from c. 268 to 232 BC. Ashoka used the expression Dhaṃma thaṃbhā, i.e. "pillars of the Dharma" to describe his own pillars. These pillars constitute important monuments of the architecture of India, most of them exhibiting the characteristic Mauryan polish. Twenty of the pillars erected by Ashoka still survive, including those with inscriptions of his edicts. Only a few with animal capitals survive of which seven complete specimens are known. Two pillars were relocated by Firuz Shah Tughlaq to Delhi. Several pillars were relocated later by Mughal Empire rulers, the animal capitals being removed. Averaging between 12 and 15 m in height, and weighing up to 50 tons each, the pillars were dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.
James Prinsep was an English scholar, orientalist and antiquary. He was the founding editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is best remembered for deciphering the Kharosthi and Dhammalipi scripts of ancient India. He studied, documented and illustrated many aspects of numismatics, metallurgy, meteorology apart from pursuing his career in India as an assay master at the mint in Benares.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham during the British Raj who also became its first Director-General.
Tamil copper-plate inscriptions are copper-plate records of grants of villages, plots of cultivable lands or other privileges to private individuals or public institutions by the members of the various South Indian royal dynasties. The study of these inscriptions has been especially important in reconstructing the history of Tamil Nadu. The grants range in date from the 10th century C.E. to the mid-19th century C.E. A large number of them belong to the pandyas, the Cholas. These plates are valuable epigraphically as they give us an insight into the social conditions of medieval South India; they also help us fill chronological gaps in the connected history of the ruling dynasties. For example, the Leyden grant of Parantaka Chola and those of Parakesari Uttama Chola are among the most important, although the most useful part, i.e., the genealogical section, of the latter's plates seems to have been lost
The earliest undisputed deciphered epigraphy found in the Indian subcontinent are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BCE, in the Brahmi script.
The Barabar Hill Caves are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India, dating from the Maurya Empire, some with Ashokan inscriptions, located in the Makhdumpur region of Jehanabad district, Bihar, India, 24 km (15 mi) north of Gaya.
Dineshchandra Sircar (1907–1985), also known as D. C. Sircar or D. C. Sarkar, was an epigraphist, historian, numismatist and folklorist, known particularly in India and Bangladesh for his work deciphering inscriptions. He was the Chief Epigraphist of the Archaeological Survey of India (1949–1962), Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the University of Calcutta (1962–1972) and the General President of the Indian History Congress. In 1972, Sircar was awarded the Sir William Jones Memorial Plaque.
The Ashokan edicts in Delhi are a series of edicts on the teachings of Buddha created by Ashoka, the Mauryan Emperor who ruled in the Indian subcontinent during the 3rd century BC. The Edicts of Ashoka were either carved on in-situ rocks or engraved on pillars erected throughout the empire; examples of both are found in Delhi.
Eugen Julius Theodor Hultzsch was a German indologist and epigraphist who is known for his work in deciphering the inscriptions of Ashoka.
Rai Bahadur Valaiyattur Venkayya was an Indian epigraphist and historian. He served as the Chief Epigraphist to the Government of India from 1908 to 1912.
About 25,000 inscriptions found in Karnataka and nearby states belong to historic Kannada rulers, including the Kadambas, the Western Ganga Dynasty, the Rashtrakuta, the Chalukya, the Hoysala and the Vijayanagara Empire. Many inscriptions related to Jainism have been unearthed. The inscriptions found are generally on stone (Shilashasana) or copper plates (Tamarashasana). These Kannada inscriptions are found on historical hero stones, coins, temple walls, pillars, tablets and rock edicts. They have contributed towards Kannada literature and helped to classify the eras of Proto Kannada, Pre Old Kannada, Old Kannada, Middle Kannada and New Kannada. Inscriptions depict the culture, tradition and prosperity of their era. The literature of Ramayana and Mahabharata are transferred through the generations by these inscriptions. The Hazara Rama Temple and Aranmula Parthasarathy Temple are the best examples of temples associated with Kannada inscriptions.
Devanampriya, also called Devanampiya, was a Pali honorific epithet used by a few Indian monarchs, but most particularly the 3rd Mauryan Emperor Ashoka The Great in his inscriptions. "Devanampriya" means "Beloved of the Gods". It is often used by Ashoka in conjunction with the title Priyadasi, which means "He who regards others with kindness", "Humane".
Lipi means 'writing, letters, alphabet', and contextually refers to scripts, the art or manner of writing, or in modified form such as lipī to painting, decorating or anointing a surface to express something.
The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman, also known as the Girnar Rock inscription of Rudradaman, is a Sanskrit prose inscribed on a rock by the Western Satraps ruler Rudradaman I. It is located near Girnar hill near Junagadh, Gujarat, India. The inscription is dated to shortly after 150 CE. The Junagadh rock contains inscriptions of Ashoka, Rudradaman I and Skandagupta.
The Minor Rock Edicts of Ashoka are rock inscriptions which form the earliest part of the Edicts of Ashoka, and predate Ashoka's Major Rock Edicts. These are the first edicts in the Indian language of Emperor Ashoka, written in the Brahmi script in the 11th year of his reign. They follow chronologically the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, in Greek and in Aramaic, written in the 10th year of his reign, which is the first known inscription of Ashoka.
The Minor Pillar Edicts of Indian Emperor Ashoka refer to 4 separate minor Edicts of Ashoka inscribed on columns(Pillars of Ashoka) at 5 locations which are among the earliest dated inscriptions of any Indian monarch. A full English translation of the Edicts was published by Romila Thapar.
The Rock edicts of Khalsi, also spelled Kalsi, are a group of an Indian rock inscriptions written by the Indian Emperor Ashoka around 250 BCE. They contain some of the most important of the Edicts of Ashoka. The inscription in Khalsi contains all the Major Rock Edicts, from 1 to 14. They were discovered in Khalsi, a village in Uttarakhand, northern India, by Alexander Cunningham about 1850.
Bairat Temple is a freestanding Buddhist temple, a Chaityagriha, located about a mile southwest of the city Viratnagar, Rajasthan, India, on a hill locally called "Bijak-ki-Pahari". The temple is of a circular type, formed of a central stupa surrounded by a circular colonnade and an enclosing wall. It was built during the time of Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE, and near it were found two of Ashoka's Minor Rock Edicts, the Bairat and the Calcutta-Bairat Minor Rock Edicts. It is the earliest circular Buddhist shrine and therefore, Bairat temple is an important marker of the architecture of India.
References
- 1 2 Madhukar, Jayanthi (2017-12-16). "What do the inscription stones of Bengaluru say?". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X . Retrieved 2017-12-19.
- ↑ "Definition of ESTAMPAGE". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2017-12-19.
- 1 2 Aswatha, Shashaank M.; Talla, Ananth Nath; Mukhopadhyay, Jayanta; Bhowmick, Partha (2014-11-01). "A Method for Extracting Text from Stone Inscriptions Using Character Spotting". Computer Vision - ACCV 2014 Workshops. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 9009. Springer, Cham. pp. 598–611. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16631-5_44. ISBN 9783319166308.
- ↑ Salomon, Richard (1998). Indian Epigraphy : a Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195356663. OCLC 466425560.
- ↑ "EPIGRAPHY - ARCHAEOLOGY". www.tnarch.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-19.
- ↑ Winckworth, C. P. T. (1929). "A New Interpretation of the Pahlavi Cross-Inscriptions of Southern India". The Journal of Theological Studies. 30 (119): 237–244. doi:10.1093/jts/os-XXX.April.237. JSTOR 23950669.
- ↑ Swaminathan, T. s Atul (2016-03-29). "ASI opens museum of estampages from across India". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X . Retrieved 2017-12-19.