Elements of South-Indian Palaeography, from the Fourth To
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com ELEMENTS SOUTH-INDIAN PALfi3&BAPBY FROM THE FOURTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. BEIN1 AN INTRODUCTION TO ?TIK STUDY OF SOUTH-INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS AND MSS. BY A. C. BURNELL HON'. PH. O. OF TUE UNIVERSITY M. K. A, ri'VORE PIS I. A SOClfcTE MANGALORE \ BASEL MISSION BOOK & TRACT DEPOSITORY ft !<3 1874 19 Vi? TRUBNER & Co. 57 & 69 LUDOATE HILL' . ' \jj *£=ggs3|fg r DISTRIBUTION of S INDIAN alphabets up to 1550 a d. ELEMENTS OF SOUTH-INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY FROM THE FOURTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY A. D. BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SOUTH-INDIAN INSCRIPTIONS AND MSS. BY A. p. j^URNELL HON. PH. D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASSBUB.G; M. R. A. S.; MEMBKE DE LA S0CIETE ASIATIQUE, ETC. ETC. MANGALORE PRINTED BY STOLZ & HIRNER, BASEL MISSION PRESS 1874 LONDON TRtlBNER & Co. 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL 3« w i d m « t als ^'ctdjcn kr §anltekcit fiir Mc i|jm bdic<jcnc JJoctorMvk ttcsc fetlings^kit auf rincm fejjcr mtfrckntcn Jfclk bet 1®4 INTRODUCTION. I trust that this elementary Sketch of South-Indian Palaeography may supply a want long felt by those who are desirous of investigating the real history of the peninsula of India. Trom the beginning of this century (when Buchanan executed the only archaeological survey that has ever been done in even a part of the South of India) up to the present time, a number of well meaning persons have gone about with much simplicity and faith collecting a mass of rubbish which they term traditions and accept as history. There is some excuse for Buchanan, but none for his followers; the persistent retailing of this "lying gabble" (as Genl. Cunningham aptly terms it) has well-nigh ruined the progress of Indian research, and caused the utter neglect of a subject that evidently promises much' '. The Vedic literature will always remain the most attractive object of study in relation to India, but there is much besides to be studied. The history of Indian civilization does not cease (as some appear to think) with the early period of Buddhism. About the 1) It must be obvious that those traditions are morely attempts at explanations of the unknown through current ideas, which in S. India amount to the merest elements of Hindu mythology as gathered from third rate sources. Mouhot the illustrious discoverer of the Cambodian temples, though a naturalist and not an archaeologist, suw this very plainly. He says ("Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China", vol. ii. pp. 8, 9.): "AH traditions being lost, the natives invent now ones, according to the measure of their capacity." The Mahatmyas are equally worthless with the oral legends, for they are modern composi tions intended to oonneot particular places with events entirely mythical and belonging to modern or even foreign religious systems. How worthless tradition is in S. India, a few examples will easily prove. The chain of rocks from India to Ceylon is (as is well known) connected with the myth of Rama's conquest of Lanka, but this localization of the mythical event must be quite recent; for, firstly, whatever may be the ago of the Ramayana, the worship of Rama is quite modern. Again, had there been any such myth current in the place during the early centuries A. D., we might expect something about it in the Periplus or Ptolemy, especially as the former gives the legend then current about Cape Comorin; but there is nothing of the kind to be found. Lastly, there is nothing whatever (Mr. D'Alwis assures us) known of the legend in Ceylon. Again, the localization of the events of the Hah&bharata is endless; every few miles in S. India one can And the place where some battle or other event occurred, and so it is also in Java. Such legends therefore are absolutely worthless, for they prove no more than that the Mahabharatn and Ramayana are or were favourite stories over a large part of the East. But the traditional practice in respect of ceremonies is worth little more; though in this case religious prejudices can hardly interfere. Thus for the Soma many different plants are used. The Brahmans on the Coromandel Coast take the 'Asolepias Acida', those of Mulabnr the 'Ceropegia Decaisneana' or 'Ceropegia Elegans'. How different in appearance these three plants are, may bo readily seen by a comparison of the figures of them given by Wight in his "Icones" ii., 595 ("Ascl. Acidn) and his "Spicile^ium Neilgherriense" pi. 152 nnd 155. From Dr. Haug's description ("Aitareya Brahmana" ii., p. 489) I am inclined to think that a fourth plant is used at Poonah. Which then, if any of them, is the original Soma? And this loss of tradition must (npart from the obvious development of rites) have begun very early; for otherwise, it is impossible to account for the variations in the details of the same ceremony as described, e.g. by the different (.'ruutasutras. Thus we find, in the Cayanas, that Apastnmba directs the construction of the altars in a different way to that prescribed by Bodhayana. So again the great difference in the way of uttering the Vedio accents and the singing of the Snma Veda, must strike every one who hears them. These differences, at all events, cannot bo original; for they occur among followers of the same £akha 0f the Veda. The Acoka tree of S. India is the Ouatteria longifolia; that of the North, the Joncsia acoka. Tradition is worthless all over the East in exactly the same way. Once, when crossing in a boat from the Nubian bank of the Nile to the temple of Philae, I asked the native boatman what he knew of tho Temple? He replied directly: "It is the Castle of Anas Alwajftd". This personage is the hero of a popular Arabio fairy-talcl Had the boatman been a native of India, he would have answered: "Rama's (or the Pandava's) palace", and backed up his story with an endless legend. VI early centuries of the Christian era, we find the Buddhist-Brahmanical civilization extending from its home in the North over alien races inhabiting the peninsula of India, and in the course of some few centuries it had already extended over Burmah, the Malay Islands, and even to the forests and swamps of Cambodia. But this immense progress was not a mere reception of stereotyped forms and opinions by uncivilized peoples; it was on the contrary (and herein lies the interest of the subject), a gradual adaptation1' to circumstances, including the creation of national literatures in many languages, which were then first reduced to writing and system. In South-India, at all events, new sects rapidly arose, which have reacted powerfully on Northern India. Books containing the various religious opinions that have prevailed more or less in these Hinduized, or rather Brahma- nized, countries, are yet easily accessible; but the chronological framework is almost entirely wanting, and this Can only be supplied from the inscriptions still existing in large numbers. If an outline of the historical events of the last fifteen centuries of S. Indian history could be gained from these inscriptions, the wearisome dry dogmatic treatises would begin to possess some human interest, and the faint outlines of a long obliterated picture would reappear; faintly at first, but with time and patient research, they would (like fossils in the hands of the geologist) present a living picture of a past, if not attractive, at all events strange. The prospect of such a result should attract the few European students of Sanskrit in S. India who at present, in the hope of learning something of Indian matters, devote their attention to mechanical poems which repeat themselves with "most damnable iteration," or to plays composed by pedants during the worst times of India. This real history of S. India can only be gathered from inscriptions. A manual of Palaeography like the one I have here attempted has a double object in view — to trace the gradual development of writing by means of documents of known date, and thus also to render it possible to assign a date to the larger number of documents which do not bear any. For this purpose I have given a chronological series of alphabets traced (with two exceptions2)) from impressions of the original documents; these are by no means perfect, as I have selected only the most usual letters, as these only can assist in determining the date. Unusual letters are often formed after analogy or capriciously, and thus have, in Indian Palaeography, but little value. Indian, and even S. Indian, Palaeography is hardly a new subject, though much that is really new will, I believe, be found in the following pages, which were originally intended to form part of an introduction to a Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit MSS. at Tanjore, now nearly ready for the press. As, however, I found that that work would necessarily be of considerable size, I have preferred publishing these pages separately. The foundations of Indian Palaeography were laid by J. Prinsep some forty years ago1), when he showed that the Indian alphabets then known to him were probably derived from the S. Acoka character which he first deciphered; since then, little or nothing has been done except Sir W. Elliot's lithographic reproduction of the Hala Kannada M Cfr.