Introductory class for BAVI Sem students of BHU

1. Prachi VS
C-602: Ancient Indian
Palaeography and Epigraphy
Unit I, IV, V
Every Tuesday-Wednesday
11.00-12.00 pm

2. The Epigraphical Code:
Decipherment of Ancient Scripts
By
Prachi Virag Sontakke

3. Introduction
• Language precedes script.
• Script : A sign of civilization.
• Scripts help in transference of knowledge.
• Initial seeds of writing : Traced in prehistoric
rock paintings.

4. Types of scripts
• Brahmi,
Kharoshthi
• Cuneiform
• Hieroglyphic,
Cuneiform
• Hieroglyphic
Pictographic Transitional
Phonetic
Ideographic

5. Scripts delt with in this presentation
• Hieroglyphs
• Cuneiform
• Indus valley
script
• Brahmi
• Kharoshthi

6. Hieroglyphics

8. Left and right
sides of the
Rosetta Stone,
with inscriptions
in English
relating to its
capture by
English forces
from the French

9. Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone
during the Second International
Congress of Orientalists, 1874

10. Thomas Young

11. Philae Obilisk: William John Bankes

12. Rosetta stone
Jean-François
Champollion
1822

13. A giant copy of the
Rosetta Stone
inFigeac, France,
the birthplace of
Jean-François
Champollion

14. Demands for return
• 2002: British Museum, the Louvre, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the
Metropolitan Museum in New York City—issued a joint statement declaring that
"objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different
sensitivities and values reflective of that earlier era" and that "museums serve
not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation
• 2003: Calls for the Rosetta Stone to be returned to Egypt were made by Zahi
Hawass, then Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
• 2005: British Museum presented Egypt with a full-sized fibreglass colour-
matched replica of the stele
• John Ray : "the day may come when the stone has spent longer in the British
Museum than it ever did in Rosetta.

15. Cuneiform script

18. Behistun inscription- Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian

19. Decipherment
• 1778: German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr visited Behistun in around 1764 for Frederick
Vth of Denmark & published a copy of the inscription in the account of his journeys.
• Niebuhr's transcriptions were used by others in their efforts to decipher the Old
Persian cuneiform script.
• Georg Friedrich Grotefend: deciphered ten of the 37 symbols of Old Persian by 1802
• 1838: Henry Rawlinson an officer of the British East India Company army assigned to
the forces of the Shah of Iran, deciphered old cuneiform.
• Rawlinson, along with several other scholars, most notably Edward Hincks, Julius
Oppert, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Edwin Norris, either working separately or in
collaboration, eventually deciphered these inscriptions
• The translation of the Old Persian sections of the Behistun Inscription paved the way
to the subsequent ability to decipher the Elamite and Babylonian parts of the text.

20. Henry
Rawlinson

22. Indus script

24. The Beginning
• The hornets' nest stirred by Wheeler: "Who knows
what the residents of Mohenjo Daro called their city?"
• 1929: G R Hunter, an Oxford PhD candidate submitted
his thesis, an analysis of 750 inscribed objects from
Mohenjo Daro and Harappa--everything that had been
excavated up to 1927 and listed all the signs in the
inscriptions.
• 1930s: Henry Heras turned his attention to the Indus
Valley script

25. B.B. Lal
• 1966: Concluded the texts were normally
read from right to left
• 1975: “The Indus Script: Some
Observations Based on Archaeology”
• 2015: Bryan K. Wells commented “ the
only fact that most researchers can agree
on
• 2018: Two scientists working at The
Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
Chennai, (IMSc) figured out a way to
computationally estimate whether a
language is written from left to right or
otherwise. Most interestingly, they have
studied the Indus script and calculated that
it must flow from right to left.

26. I.Mahadevan
• 1953: IAS. 2009: Padam Shri
• Started his research on the Indus script following a brush
with W. W. Hunter's book on the Indus Script at India's
Central Secretariat Library,Delhi.
• 1970: Offered the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship to do his
doctoral research on the Indus Script.
• 1977:Mahadevan published his first book “Indus Script:
Concordance and Tables”
• 1991 to 2003: Research on Tamil epigraphy
• 2003: Resumed his work on Indus script
• 2014: “”Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via the Rig Veda:
A Case Study”
• 2017: Toponyms, Directions and Tribal Names in the Indus
Script.”

27. Mahadevan’s Methodology
• Mahadevan has collaborated with computer analysts at the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research in Mumbai to compile a list of 500 Indus epigraphs.
• The repository depicts the number of times each sign occurs.
• The list was used recently in a computer analysis by a team led by a University of
Washington computer scientist, Rajesh Rao.
• The team compared the pattern of symbols in the Indus artifacts to words in
contemporary English, ancient Sanskrit and old Tamil. They then repeated the
calculations for samples of symbols that are not spoken languages such as DNA
sequences from the human genome.

28. Asko Parpola
• Current professor emeritus of Indology and South Asian
Studies at the University of Helsinki.
• Indus script "most likely to have belonged to Dravidian
family”
• G.Posshel doesn’t agree.
• Investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis.
proposed readings of many signs
• 1994: Deciphering the Indus Script
• 2008: “”Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system?
In: Airāvati: Felicitation vol. in honor of I. Mahadevan
• 2009: Received Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil
Award
• 2015: Awarded India's Presidential Award of Certificate
of Honour in Sanskrit.

29. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
• 2020: “Origin and Development
of the Indus Script: Insights from
Harappa and other sites”

30. Pre firing and
post firing
graffiti

31. Indus Script Hoax
• 1999: "historians N S Rajaram
and Natwar Jha claim to
decipher more than 2,000
Harappan seals."
• Mahadevan’s & Parpola’s initial
scepticism turned to howls of
disbelief--followed by charges
of fraud.
• They showed Rajaram and
Jha's methods were so flexible
that virtually any desired
message could be read into the
texts.
• Rajaram and Jha's horse seal
was a fraud, created from a
computer distortion of a
broken unicorn bull seal
excavated from Harappa

32. Is Indus script a script at all?
• 2004: Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat
(University of Illinois) and Michael Witzel
(Harvard University) stunned the world of
ancient Indus scholarship with the claim
that the Indus sign system was not writing
(their joint paper, The Collapse of the
Indus-Script : The Myth of a Literate
Harappan Civilization
• They based their reasoning on computer
analysis of Indus sign properties apparently
not in common with other ancient written
languages.
• The lack of lengthy inscriptions common to
other early written languages is another
major factor in their argument.

35. Counter-Arguments
• Asko Parpola, a linguist at Finland’s University of Helsinki:“There is no chance it is not a
script; this is a fully formed system. It was a phonetic script. archaeologist Parpola
responded by showing that sign repetitions do occur in the inscriptions
• Gregory Possehl, Linguist of the University of Pennsylvania: It is not possible to “prove” the
script cannot be deciphered.
• J. Mark Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin, Madison: “I categorically disagree that the
script does not reflect a language,”
• Mahadevan: "Seal-texts tend to be short universally. The Indus script appears to consist
mostly of word-signs. Such scripts have a lesser number of characters and repetitions than
a script where characters represent syllables-- Egyptian hieroglyphs for instance.

36. Is Indus script a script at all? • Computer scientists have shown
that the Harappan scripts tend to
resemble highly ordered writing
systems, similar to computer
code sequences or DNA codes.
• Various probability theories also
show that the Harappan
inscriptions show a certain extent
of predictability, which is a
common feature of true writing

37. • Researchers count between 400 and 700 distinct Indus
signs.
• In part, their estimates differ because of subjectivity in
judging how much variation is permissible for a single sign.
• Then they look for patterns in the distribution and
frequency of signs.
• For instance, some characters may commonly occur at the
beginning of lines or others may usually cluster together.
• characters suggests the script — if it was writing — was
likely logosyllabic, meaning signs represented full words as
well as syllabic sounds.

38. Decipherment
Challenges
• 1) Proper names: As for the
Indus, we don’t know any
historical figures or certain place
names.
• 2) A bi- or trilingual inscription:
Records the same text in both
known and unknown writing
systems..
• 3)The language the script
transcribes:
• 4) Brevity of inscriptions: With an
average of just 4 or 5 signs, most
inscriptions poses a challenge for
decipherment efforts. Other
civilizations with a writing system
have left examples that are
hundreds of characters long. The
longest example of Indus script,
by contrast, is less than 30
characters
Four key elements for decipherment so
far absent from the Indus corpus

40. Research goes on

41. Brahmi

42. Firoz Shah Tuglaq :
Delhi Topara pillar
Transportation of pillar was highly demanding,
requiring soldiers (both cavalry and foot) to pitch in. A
42-wheeled cart was used to transport it to the river
bank, where it was loaded onto a large boat. The cart
required 8,400 men to move it, 200 to each wheel.

44. Decipherment of Brahmi
• 1785 : Inscriptions of the 6th century CE in late Brahmi were deciphered by Charles Wilkins .
• 1834: T. S. Burt's procurement of reliable facsimiles of the inscriptions on the Allahabad
pillar.
• 1834: Attempts by Rev. J. Stevenson to identify intermediate early Brahmi characters from
the Karle Caves (circa 1st century CE).
• 1836: Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen who used a bilingual Greek-Brahmi coin of Indo-
Greek king Agathocles and similarities with the Pali script to correctly and securely identify
several Brahmi letters.
• Early 1930’s: James Princep
• 1938: Full reading by James Princep.

45. 1834: Attempts by Rev. J.
Stevenson to identify intermediate
early Brahmi characters from the
Karla Caves (circa 1st century CE)

46. 1836 : Norwegian scholar
Christian Lassen used the
bilingual Greek-Brahmi
coinage of Indo-Greek
king Agathocles to
correctly achieve in the
first secure decipherment
of several letters of the
Brahmi script.

47. 1837:James Princep

49. Kharoshthi

50. Decipherment of Kharoshthi
• 1833: Charles Masson excavated bronze coins and other materials from Begram.
• Masson realised that many coins issued in the region by Greek dynasties contained a
translation into a previously-unknown script on their reverse.
• 1835: Masson sent his progress, along with ink impressions and other copies of his
collection, to the Royal Asiatic Society where metallurgist and scholar James Prinsep began
decipherment.
• 1836: C. L. Grotefend
• 1836: A. Court discovered a stone inscription in Kharosthi at Shahbazgarhi

51. Decipherment
• Prinsep's and Grotefend's efforts blocked by failure to realize that the language was
an Indian one.
• 1830s: Christian Lassen, who published his findings on Kharosthi decipherment and
phonetics. Bble to improve upon Prinsep’s formulations from recognising the
language as a Prakrit, rather than Páli as suggested by Prinsep.
• 1838: Prinsep announced his discovery of the true Indie character of the Kharosthi
• 1846: Edwin Morris -first reliable transcription of Shahbazgarhi inscription.
• Mid 1800s: E. Norris published a nearly completed table of deciphered akṣaras
• 1863: J. Dowson compiled the entirety of available Kharosthi documents

53. Kharoshthi

57. Epigraphy: Meaning
• Epigraphy: derived from two Greek words ‘epi’ = ‘on or upon’ & ‘graphie’ = ‘to write
• Word ‘Inscription’ is also commonly used as a synonymous with epigraph.
• Derived from a Latin word ‘Inscribere’ = ‘to write upon
• D.C.Sircar: Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions. Inscription literally means anything
engraved on some object.
• J.F.Fleet: The inscription are notifications, very frequently of an official character and
generally more or less of a public nature, which recite facts, simple or complex, with or
without dates and were intended to be lasting records of the matters to which they
refer.
• Richard Salomon: Epigraphy is concerned with the study of inscriptions and their
contents rather than with the forms, varieties, and historical development of the
scripts in which they are written.

58. Nature of
epigraphy
Epigraphy
Dating
Variety of
Content
Meant for
Public
Observation
Variety of
Mediums
Variety of
Techniques
Reconstruct

60. • Deals with study of script,
medium, methodology,
content, interpretation,
dating.
• Theme : Vast. Political
dynastic history, social,
religious, administrative,
economic, educational,
geographic etc conditions of
a particular
period/reign/region.
• Area of study: From beginning of writing.
• Limited to historic and medieval period.

61. Palaeography
• Palaeo = Old, Graphy = Study
• Science of studying ancient or old scripts
• Evolution of scripts related to time and
region.
• An essential and important part of
Epigraphical studies.
• Focus on the script & related decipherment of
the inscriptions.
• No concern with the contents of the records.
• Helpful for studying the development of
Indian scripts and languages.
• Useful to reveal many ancient scripts which
had been shrouded in mystery for centuries.
• Helps in dating of inscriptions.

62. Palaeographic concerns
• Orientation of individual signs and
letters
• Direction of writing
• Headlines
• Grouping of letters and words:
• Punctuation
• Pagination
• Corrections
• Abbreviations
• Omissions
• Auspicious symbols and
ornamentation

63. Epigraphical studies
Interpreting
Analysing
Deciphering
Stamping

64. Epigraphy as a source of history
• Corroborates information gleamed from other
sources: Nasik inscription, Prayag Prasashti,
Rock edit 13th of Ashoka etc.
• Brings novel information: Hathigumpha
inscription.
• Dating of events: Ashokan edicts.

65. Political history
• Royal genealogy: Junagarh inscription, Prayag Prashasti, Poona
copper plate etc
• Battles: Aihole inscription, Rock edit 13 of Ashoka, Nasik inscription
• Extent of empire: Prayag Prashasti, Hathigumpha inscription,
Mandsore inscription etc
• Contemporary kings: Rock edict 2nd & 13th of Ashoka, Hathigumpha
inscription, Prayag Prashasti etc.
• Administration: Ashokan inscriptions, Uttarmerur inscription,
Junagarh inscription etc.

66. Social history
• Social stratification: Banskheda copper
plate, Koh copper plate etc
• Social customs: Gadhwa copper plate,
Eran inscription, Brahmadeyam
inscription etc
• Education & learning: Nalanda
inscriptions.
• Dance and music: Hathigumpha
inscription
• Dress & Ornaments: Mandsore
inscription, Sarnath inscription, Nasik
inscription etc.
• Literature: Junagarh inscription, Prayag
Prasashti, Aihole inscription etc.

67. Economy & Trade
• Irrigation: Hathigumpha inscription, Junagadh
inscription etc.
• Guilds: Mandsore inscription, Indore copper
plate, Karle inscriptions, Sanchi inscriptions
etc.
• Land grants: Banskheda copper plates, Poona
copper plates, Damodarpur copper plates
etc.
• Taxation: Rummendei inscription, Chahman
inscription etc.
• Currency: Nasik inscription, Nanaghat
inscription, Gadwa inscription etc.
• Bhitari sealing: ‘Agneyas Sri Madhusadan’
=iron ore ?
• Migration of traders: Mandsore inscription
etc.

68. Religious conditions
• Buddhism: Ashokan inscriptions, Sanchi inscriptions, Bharhut inscriptions, Nasik cave
inscription, Sarnath image inscription, Mankuwar inscription, Khalimpur inscription
etc.
• Jainism: Hathigumpha inscription, Durjanpur inscription, Paharpur copper plate etc.
• Vaishnavism: Besanagar Pillar inscription, Nanaghat inscription, Mehrauli pillar
inscription, Poona copper plate etc.
• Shaivism: Mathura pillar inscription, Udaygiri cave inscription, Karamdanda
inscription, Madhuban copper plate etc.
• Sun worship: Martand inscription, Indore copper plate, Mandsore inscription
• Religious tolerance.

69. Geography &
Palaeoenvironment
Famine: Mahasthan
inscription + Sohgaura
inscription
Excessive rain: Junagarh
inscription
Geography: Prayag Prashasti

70. Regional contacts
• Mathura well inscription: Kharoshthi
• Mathura lion sculpture inscription: Kharoshthi
• Chunar inscription: ‘Ateeva koshah’ in Kharoshthi.
• Ashokan Rock Edict at Brahmagiri: ‘Chaparena Likhite Lipikaren’ in
Kharoshthi.

71. Problems and Prospects in Epigraphical Studies
Weathering + Neglect + Vandalism
Cannot find the distinctive forms of the letters
Palaeographical
problems
Use of eras and chronograms complicate the chronology
Dateless inscriptions.
Chronology/
dating
Names referred to as epithets.
Existence of the same name and title
Difficulty in
identifying the
kings/Persons
Names cited in the inscriptions vs. their modern geography
Difficulty in
identifying the
kings/Persons

72. Books
• A.H.Dani : Indian Palaeography
• B.S.Upasak: History & Palaeography of Mauryan scripts.
• E. Hultzsch: Inscriptions of Asoka.
• G.H.Ojha: Indian Palaeography.
• G.Buhler: Indian Palaeography.
• D.C.Sircar: Indian Epigraphy.
• D.C.Sircar: Select Inscriptions Vol. I
• Richard Salomon: Indian epigraphy A guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit and other
Indo Aryan languages.
• P.K.Agrawala: Imperial Gupta Epigraphs
• T.P.Verma: The Palaeography of Brāhmī Script
• Corpus Inscription Indicarum : Relevant Volumes.