Indian Epigraphy and the Asiatic Society: The First Fifty Yearsby Ludo Rocher and Rosane Rocher
University of Pennsylvania
Bulletin of the Asia Institute
New Series, Vol. 23 (2009), pp. 159-170 (12 pages)
Published by: Bulletin of the Asia Institute, a Non-Profit Corporation
In his signature Indian Epigraphy (1998), the honoree of the present volume devoted a chapter to "The History of Indian Epigraphic Studies." The purpose of our essay is to follow up on the first period of this history, "The Pioneering Era: Early Readings of Indian Inscriptions (1781-1834)" (IE: 199-203), focusing on the dynamics and modalities of this epoch, which encompassed the early years of the Asiatic(k) Society and the publication of the twenty volumes of Asiatic(k) Researches, before "the study of Indian inscriptions erupted in a blaze of glory" (IE: 203).
More than any other, the first volume of AR dealt with epigraphy (1788: seven articles). Studies on inscriptions further appeared in volumes 2 (1790: two), 3 (1792: one), 5 (1798: two), 7 (1801: one), 9(1807: one), 12 (1816: one), 14 (1822: one), 15 (1825: two), 16 (1828: two), and 20 (1836-1839: two).
The Role of the Asiatic SocietyAs it did for many areas of research on India, the Asiatic Society provided a rallying point, an established institution where contributions to the study of epigraphy could be submitted, discussed, published, and widely distributed. The abundance of papers on inscriptions in the first volume of AR shows that there was a store of material susceptible of publication. Presenting an "Account of the Sculptures and Ruins at Mavalipuram" at the meeting of 17 June 1784, William Chambers regretted that, when he visited the site in 1772 and 1776, there did not exist in India "so powerful an incentive to diligent enquiry and accurate communication, as the establishment of this Society must now prove" (PAS 1: 33, publ. 1788, AR 1: 145-70 @145). Inscriptions had incidentally drawn Chambers' attention, as that of other visitors to ancient monuments. He was sufficiently impressed later to tell his fellow members that "on one of the Pagodas . . . there is an inscription of a single line, in a character at present unknown to the Hindoos," and that be hoped "that some method may be fallen upon of procuring an exact copy of this inscription," since it was one of the "circumstances attending these monuments, which cannot but excite great curiosity, and on which future inquiries may possibly throw some light" (AR 1: 152).
The fortuitous character of epigraphic discoveries did not cease with the founding of the Asiatic Society. John Herbert Harington, the Society's secretary from 1784 to 1792, reported:
A knowledge of the antiquities of Hinduism forming one of the several objects proposed by the institution of our Society, with the hope of communicating something acceptable on this head, I took the opportunity of a late excursion up the country (to visit a cave near Bodh-Gaya) ... On my describing it to the President, whom I had the pleasure to accompany, I was encouraged by him to think that a particular account of it would be curious and useful, and in consequence made a second visit to it from Gya, when I took the following measurements, and, by the means of my Moonshee, a copy of the inscription on it" (1788, AR 1: 276).
It thus appears that Sir William Jones had suggested that Harington explore and describe the cave, and that Harington's discovery of an inscription was accidental.1
Charles Wilkins was in the rare position of not having to wait for the founding of the Asiatic Society to get his work into print. In 1781, shortly after beginning to learn Sanskrit, "the Caxton of India" printed at his own press in Calcutta a translation Governor-General Warren Hastings had asked him to make of an inscription on copper found at Mungir. The first volume of AR reprinted this tract, omitting the dedication to Hastings and adding a facsimile of the inscription, and insured a wide distribution for what had been an obscure pamphlet (1788, AR 1: 123-30). For Wilkins, interest in epigraphy and in Sanskrit went hand in hand. He intimated in his dedication that Hastings' approval of his translation of the Mungir inscription would constitute "a farther inducement ... to pursue the study of the Sanscrit language, in the intricacies of which so much valuable learning lies hidden." He kept Hastings, who allowed him to reside in Banaras for the purpose of learning Sanskrit, apprised of his further epigraphic work, for a handwritten copy of his translation of an inscription at Bodh-Gaya was returned to the custodian of Hastings' papers from Daylesford, his last residence, in September 1836 (APAC: MSS Eur. F324/3, publ. 1788, AR 1: 284-87). Wilkins was already interested in epigraphy in 1780, when, he later wrote,
I discovered, in the vicinity of the town of Buddal, near which the Company have a Factory, and which at that time was under my charge, a decapitated monumental column ... At a few feet above the ground Ii an inscription engraved in the stone, from which I took two reversed impressions with printer's ink.
After initial frustrations, he was able to present his findings to the Society on 14 July 1785, by which time he had "lately been so fortunate as to decypher the character" (PAS 1: 58, publ. 1788, AR 1: 131-41@131).
The Asiatic Society clearly appreciated papers on inscriptions more than on some other objects. Inscriptions found and copied by John Eardley Wilmot, translated by Wilkins, were welcomed and published in AR (15 Dec. 1785, PAS 1: 68, publ. 1790, AR 2: 167-69; 29 Dec. 1785, PAS 1:69, publ. 1788, AR 1: 284-87). By contrast, Wilmot's concurrent communication of "a number of drawings of Hindu temples and images" only elicited the thanks of the Society "for the entertainment afforded by his performances" (29 Dec. 1785, PAS 1: 69). Twenty years after the Society's foundation, when botanist Nathaniel Wallich volunteered to curate a museum in the new structure the Society had built to house its activities, and the Society resolved to draw and make public a list of objects it solicited, the first item in a list of 17 desiderata was "Inscriptions on stone or brass" (2 Feb. 1814, PAS 2: 471, publ. 1816, AR 12: Appendix, v).
Crucial for publication was the availability of a translation. A communication of Charles W. Malet "containing some account of the caves of Salset; and enclosing an inscription taken from them, the character and language of which is unknown" was "returned with the thanks of the Society" (30 June 1785, PAS 1: 57). Years later, when Lieut. William Price sent "a copy of an imperfect inscription in Sanscrit found upon a stone in Bundelcund," he was asked "to add any further remarks or a translation to his communication" (3 Feb. 1813, PAS 2: 453). At a following meeting, was "[r]ead a letter from Lieut. W. Price forwarding to the Society a large stone with Sanscrit inscription found in Bundlelkhund accompanied with a manuscript copy and a translation." Only then was it resolved "that Lieut. Price receive thanks of the Society and that the translated inscriptions be referred to the Committee of Papers" (2 June 1813, PAS 2: 455-56). Price's "Translation of a Sanscrit Inscription on a Stone Found in Bundelc'hand" was published in the long delayed twelfth volume of AR together with a letter dated Calcutta, 1 September 1813, addressed to Society president Henry Thomas Colebrooke, in which Price related how he had "observed a stone, with a Sanscrit inscription, lying at the foot of a rocky hill in the vicinity of the town of Mow, about ten miles from Chatterpur," had the stone removed, deciphered the inscription, and begged leave "to present the monument to the Asiatick Society, and to lay before them a correct transcript of the original, in modern Devanagari character, with a literal translation" (1816, AR 12: 357-74 @357, 358).
Among submitted inscriptions that remained unpublished, apparently for lack of a translation or interpretive account, was a set of facsimiles presented by Major Colin Mackenzie, surveyor of Mysore, an avid collector of inscriptions in South India (7 Jan. 1807, PAS 2: 3411 cf. IE: 203). Similarly, no action other than a vote of thanks was taken on "a transcript of an inscription on stone in the fort of Hansi together with a specimen of the character," which Lieut. Edward Fell first submitted with the rider: "[ I] am sorry that at present my slight knowledge of the Sanscrit prevents an accompanying translation. I fear even some parts of this may be incorrect from the mutilated state of the letters" (5 Aug. 1812, PAS 2: 446, 821- 22). Fell did become an excellent Sanskritist and later submitted a translation of the Hansi inscription, repeatedly begging secretary Horace Hayman Wilson to present it to the Society (7 Mar. 1822, 30 Oct. 1822, 11 Jan. 1823, 21 May 1823, APAC: MSS Eur. E301/1, ff. 77, 95, 103, 116). There was no follow-up either on Fell's submission of a "translation of an inscription from Gurrah Mandal" (7 May 1823, PAS 3: 467). The hitch appears to have been Fell's inability to provide a historical context, for he wrote Wilson on 18 June 1823:
I have nothing in the way of history on the Gurrah & Hansi inscriptions. I don't even know where the first was found -- it was given to me by Col. OBrien -- the latter I transcribed when at Hansi -- it is built in the wall of a handsome Mosque created by Mahmud Ghori, who conquered Hansi ... in 1192. Your fertile genius will enable you to add a few explanations" (APAC: MSS Eur. E301/1, ff. 122-23).
Wilson eventually included both in "Sanscrit Inscriptions. By (the late) Captain E. Fell. With observations by H. H. Wilson" (1825, AR 15: 436-69 @437- 43, 443-46), after all of Fell's manuscript translations were "placed at [his] disposal, upon one condition, viz. that [he would] be so good as to prepare for publication any which in [his] judgment are deserving of it" (Charles Thoresby to Wilson, 1 June 1824, APAC: MSS Eur. E301/1, f. 139). The first of these two inscriptions had been the subject of a duplicate submission. Captain R. Lachlan had laid before the Society on 16 September 1820 "a copy of a Sanscrit inscription detailing the genealogy of the Kings of Gurhamandala with an English translation by Capt. Price" (PAS 3: 358), to which no further reference is found.
Few people who discovered inscriptions were capable of deciphering and translating or interpreting them. As we noted, Wilkins became able to do so several years after discovering the inscription at Badal, Fell some time after first examining that at Hansi. As we also noted, Price was already equal to complying with the Society's request for a translation of the inscription he had found in Bundelkhand when he settled in Calcutta and began teaching Sanskrit, Bengali, and other languages at the College of Fort William. Walter Ewer, an accomplished Persian scholar, acquired the skills to read the till then inaccessible Persian inscriptions on the Qutb Minar by using "a telescope of great magnifying power," translate them, and communicate text and translation to the Society (20 Dec. 1818, PAS 3:363, publ. 1822, AR 14: 480-89@481).
When unsure of what they had found and/or aware that the Society expected more than plain copies of inscriptions, others sought expert help from scholars who prepared translations and presented them to the Society. Publications appeared under the translator's name, with or without mention of the person who had first found the inscription. Thus, of two translations of inscriptions which the Society's proceedings record Wilmot forwarded and Wilkins submitted in December 1785, one, "Translation of a Sanscrit Inscription, copied from a stone at Booddha-Gaya, by Mr. Wilmot, 1785. Translated by Charles Wilkins, Esq.," recorded Wilmot's name (29 Dec. 1785, PAS 1: 69, publ. 1788, AR 1: 284-87). The other, "Two Inscriptions from the Vindhya Mountains, Translated from the Sanscrit by Charles Wilkins, Esq.," did not refer to Wilmot either in the title or in the body of the published text (15 Dec. 1785, PAS I: 68, publ. l790, AR 2: 167-69).
On several occasions, the Society asked experts to provide translations of inscriptions that had been submitted. Secretary Harington requested from Wilkins a "Translation of a Sanscrit Inscription" from the Nagarjuni Hill (17 Mar. 1785, PAS 1: 47, publ. 1788, AR 1: 279- 83). When Resident at Poona Sir Charles W. Malet sent "a facsimile of some ancient inscriptions found in the caves at Ellora," the Society asked Lieut. Francis Wilford in Banaras to decipher and translate them. They were published, notwithstanding Wilford's lukewarm assessment that they were "of little importance; but the publication of them, may assist the labours of others in decyphering more interesting manuscripts or inscriptions" (3 Dec. 1795, PAS 1: 256, publ. 1798, AR 5: 135-40 @135). When William Moorecroft sent copper plates he had procured on loan from temple priests near Badrinath, William Carey and William Price were asked to examine them and report. After submitting an account of the inscription, Price was further requested to provide a literal translation (30 Dec. 1820, 17 Feb. 1821, PAS 3:362, 378, 1083). There, however, matters rested, perhaps because Price judged that "[t]hese were simply royal edicts declaratory of a charitable donation of lands and had nothing to do with the history of the temple of Badri Nath" (PAS 3: 402, 1085-86). Unaware of this development, Moorcroft suggested a further long haul for the plates, writing secretary Wilson from Leh:
Were the inscriptions on the copper Plates of Punkhesur translated? I apprehend they were in the Tibetan character -- if sent here they may be translated into Persian. [Commissioner in Kumaon) Mr Traill would find no difficulty in willing them to the commanding Official at Sabathas who would forward them to this place with a letter to the Minister" [31 Dec. 1821, APAC: MSS Eur. E-101/1 f. 75).
The Society went to great lengths to insure a correct reading and interpretation of two inscriptions from the Rajivalocana temple in Rajim, Chattisgarh, copies of which had been forwarded by Resident at Nagpur Richard Jenkins, with a translation of the first (9 July 1823, PAS 3: 470-71). Concerned that conjectural readings and translations from local pandits were unreliable, they requested facsimiles of both inscriptions, which Jenkins had Col. Agnew submit on 10 March 1824. Only then was a translation of the first read, with observations in which secretary Wilson noted that "[ b]esides the historical notices furnished by this inscription, .... it has some value in the history of Hindoo literature" for dating the Puranas (PAS 3: 494, 512, PAS 3: 1176- 79, publ. 1825, AR 15: 511-15). By contrast, a series of inscriptions found at Mount Abu and submitted with translations by Capt. Alexander Spiers (5 May 1824, PAS 3: 498) were judged too voluminous and many of too little importance. In this case, Wilson undertook to publish "a concise description of the series, translating, in detail, those only which appear to afford materials to history" (1828, AR 16: 284-330 @284).
The Society was keen to publish not only first translations of inscriptions, but also corrected translations based on better documentation. On receiving "a Book of Drawings and Inscriptions prepared under the inspection of their late Member Captain James Hoare:," Harington, vice-president from 1797 to 1819, took advantage of a visit by Colebrooke to Calcutta to have him produce on the basis of this new material a "Translation of One of the Inscriptions on the Pillar at Dehlee, called the Lat of Feeroz Shah" (6 Dec. 1798, PAS I: 304-5, publ. 1801, AR 7: 175-82 @175; cf. Rocher and Rocher 2012: 54), which improved on the translation Jones had first published, based on a copy provided by Antoine Potler (27 Mar. 1788, PAS 1: 125, publ. 1788, AR 1: 379-82).
When interest in epigraphic material waned in the later 1820s, even a translation was not enough to incite publication. Among inscriptions submitted after 1825, only three appeared in AR. "Translation of an Inscription on the Great Bell of Rangoon" by the Rev. G. H. Hough had been read on 1 November 1826 (PAS 3:571, publ. 1828, AR 16: 270-83). The other two, read in the 1830s, appeared in the much delayed first part of the 20th volume, published in 1836: "Translation of Various Inscriptions Found among the Ruins of Vijayanagar" by E. C. Ravenshaw, with preliminary observations by secretary Wilson (7 Nov. 1832, JASB 1: 513, publ. AR 20.1: 1- 40), and a translation by Resident at Ava, Lieut . Col. H. Burney, of an inscription in Burmese discovered at Bodh-Gaya in 1833 by his brother Capt. George Burney (3 Sep. 1834, JASB 3: 411, publ. AR 20.1: 161- 89).
Occasionally, disinterest sank to utter neglect. Not until the meeting of 28 May 1834 were extracts read of
letters from B. H. Hodgson Esq., Resident in Nepal, on the subject of inscriptions in the character No. 1. of the Allahabad column, and forwarding a native drawing of the Matthia Lat'h . . . with an accurate transcript of its inscription. / Also an accurate facsimile of an inscription from the Sagar territory, which proves to be in old Sanscrit character.
To this report James Prinsep, who served as secretary from 1833 to 1838, added the telling remark:
These inscriptions, Mr. Hodgson says, were communicated to the Asiatic Society, eight or ten years ago, but no trace of them could be found among its records: fortunately he has preserved the originals, from which we shall take an early opportunity to make engravings for publication, together with the author's remarks upon this and three other Lat'hs in North Behar of a similar nature (JASB 3: 245- 46).
Hodgson's "Notice of Some Ancient Inscriptions in the Characters of the Allahabad Column" and a "Note on the Mathiah Lath Inscription" by Prinsep were published in the following October, not in Asiatic Researches, but in the new, monthly Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (ibid: 481-87), which Prinsep had started in 1832 to print the Society's proceedings as well as shorter essays than those in the sluggish Asiatic Researches, which was soon discontinued. With this and other articles, the third volume of JASB again gave epigraphy pride of place, as Prinsep revitalized it.
Of interest are the varied and often circuitous ways in which original inscriptions and copies reached the Society. More often than by purposeful, personal exploration, European civil administrators and members of the military service obtained inscriptions from Indian laborers who found them while engaged in their daily work. Publishing an essay "On Ancient Monuments, Containing Sanscrit Inscriptions" which had been presented to the Society (1807, AR 9: 398- 444), Colebrooke narrated: "Towards the end of 1803, a plate of copper was discovered in digging earth for the repair of the highway through the Manamati hills in the district of Tipura. It was carried to Mr. Eliot, Magistrate of the district; and by him communicated to the Asiatick Society" (401-2). Another copper plate was "found in the district of Gorakhpur, near the river called the little Gand'hac. It was brought to Mr. John Ahmuti, Magistrate of the district, and by him communicated to Captain Wilford, who has presented it to the Asiatick Society" (406). 1n 1806,
a plate of copper was found at Amgach'hi in Sultanpur, by a peasant, digging earth for the repair of a road near his cottage. He delivered it to the nearest police officer, by whom it was conveyed to the Magistrate, Mr. J. Pattle: and by him forwarded for communication to the Asiatick Society (434).
In 1821, Major-General Hardwicke sent "an account of a Sanscrit and Persian inscription on a stone found at Sirsah by Captain W. S. Whish." The marble slab had been found in 1818 "when the force under Major-General Arnold encamped there . . . amongst the rubbish of decayed buildings" (PAS 3: 393, 408). This submission remained unpublished.
One set of inscriptions traveled from a peasant to the Society via the highest echelon of government: "In the beginning of 1823, seven plates of copper with Sanscrit Inscriptions were found by a peasant at work in a field ... ; they were delivered by him to the Magistrate and forwarded to the Government by whom they were presented to the Society" (1825, AR 15: 446). W. B. Bayley, Chief Secretary to Government, wrote Society secretary Wilson:
I am directed by the Honourable the Governor General in Council to transmit to you, for the purpose of their being presented to the Museum of the Asiatic Society, the accompanying 7 plates of copper recently discovered in a field near the junction of the Burna Nullah with the Ganges at Benaras. / 2. The accompanying copy of a letter and of its enclosures from Mr. Macleod, judge and Magistrate of the City of Benaras, are also forwarded to you, in order that they may be laid before the Asiatic Society.
The government added another, unusual step:
3. The Governor General in Council is desirous of forwarding to the Hon'ble the Court of Directors, accurate copies of the several inscriptions on these plates, and I am directed to request that you will be good enough to furnish me with copies of them for that purpose" (24 July 1823, PAS 3: 1603).
In this multiple transfer, one crucial element was omitted in Bayley's official letter, but was revealed in a letter Wilson had received from his protege Fell in Banaras:
The plates were taken to Macleod who sent them to me with a letter on the 'service' requesting me to decypher and to translate them. This has all been done and I do not like to appear to be playing double with him as he has most particularly requested me not to send down a translation, as he says he intends to send it to Mr Bayley. You will however ultimately have it" (30 Oct. 1822, APAC: MSS Eur. E301/ l, f. 95).
Fell was to complain that Macleod was dilatory in transmitting this material, and griped: "He is the worst (blank) we could have" (11 Jan. 1823, 18 June 1823, ibid.: ff. 103, 123). A translation of these "Inscriptions from Benares," with notes by Wilson, was published under the late Capt. Fell's name (1825, AR 15: 437-69 @446-69).
Most inscriptions that made their way to Calcutta were intended to find a permanent place in the Society and its museum, but not all of them did. Returning from a visit to Bombay, General John Carnac brought six copper plates, found during digging works in Thana, but noted in his cover letter: "I obtained permission (from the Governor of Bombay) to bring them round with me, being desirous to submit them to the investigation of the Asiatick Society, under the promise of restoring them to the Proprietor" (15 Feb. 1787, translation read on 29 Mar., PAS l: 101, publ. 1788, AR 1: 357-67, letter @356). A letter from Moorcroft,
communicating his having procured the loan of four large sheets of copper with inscriptions relative (so he thought) to the ancient theological history of the Hindoos from the temple of Punkesur near Budureenath and forwarded the same to the Commissioner at Kumaon, to be sent down to Calcutta, and requesting that the sheets may be returned to the temple within the period of eighteen months (8 Jan. 1820, PAS 3: 340),
reported that he had argued that the originals would best be deciphered in Calcutta "to avoid the risk of errors in copying them likely to occur from the inscriptions being in a language wholly unknown to the Brahmins in attendance at the Temple" (ibid.: 366). Expressing the hope that copper plates from Rajim might be "worthy of being submitted to the Asiatic Society," Jenkins also specified: "I do not say presented, as the Pujaris of the temple to which they belong are not willing to part with them altogether, and 1 have promised that they shall be restored" (read 9 July 1823, PAS 3:470, 1176-77, AR 15: 499).
Notwithstanding the wealth of epigraphic material that reached the Asiatic Society, there is little doubt that many more inscriptions on stone or copper did not find their way to the Society, but fell into the hands of Europeans who wished to own and carry some home as curiosities. Colebrooke deplored that a copper plate had been carried away "beyond reach of reference, having been conveyed to Europe to be there buried in some publick museum or private collection" (1807, AR 9: 401). Even though, in that case, he was able to work from a copy of the transcript preserved by pandit Sarvoru Trivedi (1807, AR 9: 400, 441 ), he viewed such copies as a pis-aller, and "urge(d) the communication of every inscription which may be hereafter discovered," insisting:
It is a subject for regret, that the originals, of which versions have before been made publick, are not deposited where they might be accessible to persons engaged in researches into Indian literature and antiquities: but much more so, that ancient monuments, which there is reason to consider as important, have been removed to Europe, before they had been sufficiently examined, or before they were accurately copied and translated (1807, AR 9: 400).
This was a situation which the Asiatic Society sought to remedy with the formal establishment of a museum.
The Role of PanditsFor inscriptions as for Sanskrit literary texts, Europeans in India often sought the help of pandits. More frequently than with texts, however, native knowledge was apt to fall short of their expectations, as ancient scripts proved a hurdle.2 We are repeatedly told that "even pandits" were unable to decipher a script and interpret inscriptions. Before turning to Wilkins, Harington had taken the impression of the Nagarjuni inscription, which "many Pundits . . . who had seen the original engraving, had attempted in vain to decipher," to Banaras, the reputed center of Hindu learning, but even "a Pundit at Benaris ... attempted in vain to get it read" (1788, AR 1: 276). Sending the box of Rajim copper plates, Jenkins wrote: "The plates and signet bear inscriptions in a character which none of the brahmins of the country are able to decypher" (read 9 July 1823, PAS 3: 470-71, publ. 1825, AR 15: 499-515 @499). Regarding the Thana copper plates, Carnac was less precise: "The Governor of Bombay informed me none of the Gujerat Bramins could explain the Inscriptions" (AR 1: 356), but the fact that he carried the plates, not a transcript, to Calcutta points to an issue of decipherment more than interpretation.
Some pandits nevertheless played an active role in the decipherment and/or elucidation of inscriptions. As Richard Salomon has noted, "These panditas were often, but by no means always, given due credit for their efforts in the publications of English authors, so that it is not always easy to fully evaluate the nominal authors' real contributions" (IE: p. 202, n. 14). We have sought to gather additional information on whether, and to what extent, the most prominent European authors of articles on inscriptions in AR relied on, and, if so, acknowledged, the contribution of pandits in their attempts to decipher and translate Indian inscriptions.In a unique case, Wilkins seems to have been able early on to decipher the script of inscriptions on his own. He wrote Harington of the Nagarjuni inscription which had stumped pandits:
Having been so fortunate as to make out the whole of the curious inscription you were so obliging as to lend me, I herewith return it, accompanied by an exact copy, in a reduced size, interlined with each corresponding letter in the modern Dewnagar character; and also a copy of my translation, which is as literal as the idioms would admit it to be" (17 Mar. 1785, publ. 1788, AR 1: 279).
In addition to "pure perseverance and genius" (IE: 200-201), Wilkins likely could draw on the expertise and sensitivity to written forms he had developed in his youth as the nephew of an engraver, and later as a founder of types in India. An even more remarkable achievement by Wilkins was his translation, published as a letter in AR 1, 279-83, of the record now known as the Nagarjuni hill cave inscription of the early Maukhari king Anantavarman.9 [Presented March 17, 1785 (Chaudhuri, Proceedings, 47).] While his comment that the script is "very materially different from that we find in inscriptions of eighteen hundred years ago" is due to his incorrect dating of the Mungir plate alluded to earlier, he was nonetheless correct that "the character is undoubtedly the most ancient of any that have hitherto come under my inspection." (Anantavarman is now known to have ruled sometime in the sixth century A.D.)
It is truly remarkable that Wilkins was somehow able to read the late Brahmi of this period, which, unlike the scripts of three centuries later, is very different from modern scripts both in its general form and in many of its specific characters. It is thus not entirely clear how, beyond pure perseverance and genius, Wilkins managed to read this inscription, but presumably he did this by working back from the script of the Pala period which he had already mastered.10 [The precise order in which Wilkins translated his first three inss. is not certain, but it is clear that he worked on the Mungir ins. first, in 1781, and that the Nagarjuni and Badal inss. followed in the period between 1781 and his presentation of all three inss. to the society in 1785 (see Kejariwal, The Asiatic Society, 43-4).] In any case, his translation, while once again not always correct, proves beyond question that he could read the late Brahmi, or early Siddhamatrka, script of the sixth century.
-- Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages, by Richard Salomon
Still, like many contemporaries, he did resort to panditic knowledge to interpret and translate inscriptions as well as literary texts. In his early translation of the Mungir inscription, he acknowledged "[t]he Pundit, by whose assistance this translation was made" (Wilkins 1781, Notes, 21 1788, AR 1: p. 129, n. 4), just as he did later in his translations of the Bhagavadgita (1785, [26]) and Hitopodesa (1787, 319), and in his Sanskrit grammar (1808, xi).
Jones was more inclined than most to acknowledge the assistance he received from pandits. Yet, this is not always immediately apparent in his publications on Indian Inscriptions. Both in the proceedings of the Society and in Asiatic Researches, some inscriptions were presented simply as "translated by the President." For instance, "A Royal Grant of Land in Carnata" communicated by Alexander Macleod was said to have been "translated from the Sanscrit by the President" (read 13 Jan. 1791, PAS 1: 167, publ. 1792, AR 3: 39-53). In the notes to the translation, however, Jones repeatedly referred to consultations with several pandits (AR 3: 43, 48). In the Society's proceedings, the Thana copper plates were presented as "translated by the President" (29 Mar. 1787, PAS 1:101). The published text, however, is said to have been "literally translated from the Sanscrit, as explained by Ramalochan Pandit," Jones's first teacher of Sanskrit (1788, AR 1: 357),3 and omits Jones's name entirely from the title and body of the text. Likewise, the proceedings for 27 March 1788 report: "Read Translation of Inscriptions on pillars of Firoze Shah's Kotela, received from Col. Polier by the President" (PAS 1: 125), but in the printed text the inscriptions are said to be "Translated from the Sanscrit, as explained by Radhacanta Sarman," who soon became Jones's primary panditic acolyte (1788, AR 1: 3791. Jones's authorship of these English translations was to be reclaimed with their inclusion in his collected Works (1807, vol. 4: 334-47, 348-52). Jones's "Remarks" on Wilkins' translations of the Mungir and Badal inscriptions stemmed from a close comparison with the Sanskrit texts together with Radhakanta, to whom he referred several times and paid a ringing tribute: "Radhacanta proposed a conjectural emendation, which would have done honour to Scaliger or Bentley" (1788, AR 1: 143).
Colebrooke, too, regularly resorted to panditic knowledge in the interpretation of inscriptions as well as literary texts. Whereas Jones had studied the inscription on Firuz Shah's column with the assistance of Radhakanta, Colebrooke's improved translation was produced in collaboration with Sarvoru Trivedi, to whom he referred in notes (read 6 Dec. 1798, PAS 1: 305, publ. 1801, AR 7: p. 180, n. 51 p. 181, n. 7), and whom he again identified in a subsequent article as the pandit "who assisted me in decypherlng the copy of an inscription on Firoz Shah's pillar at Delhi" (1807, AR 9: 400, n.).4 Although Colebrooke failed to publish a translation that improved on Wilkins' long, but incomplete, account of an inscription found in Portugal on the grounds of Don Joao de Castro's villa in Sintra, which James Murphy had published with a facsimile (1795: 274-87), he recorded in a letter to his father how crucial panditic help had been to him:If you see Mr. Wilkins, will you mention to him that I have succeeded in deciphering (with the help of Pundits) the inscription which Mr. W. examined and partly decyphered from a copy made by Mr. Murphy. I mean an inscription carried to Portugal, and there copied by Mr. Murphy. I have thoughts of publishing a translation of it. I am not surprised that Mr. Wilkins could not decipher the whole of it. I should not have succeeded better without help (5 Oct. 1803, Life: 214).
In his major essay "On Ancient Monuments, Containing Sanscrit Inscriptions," Colebrooke relied on, and referred throughout to "Pandits," even "the aid of several Pandits" (1807, AR 9: 398-444). He had one of the inscriptions, which had been deciphered by a pandit in Wilford's service, reexamined "with the concurrence of several Pandits from Tirhut," since the characters "make a nearer approach to the Tirhutiya letters than to any other now in use" (406-7). The text of an inscription forwarded by Mackenzie was, Colebrooke said, "in some instances, read differently by the Pandits whom (he had) consulted," than the translation made by Mackenzie's principal assistant, Kaveli Boria (1807, AR 9: 413).Fell, whose submissions, even "with the help of a Pandit" (PAS 2: 822), remained unpublished in his lifetime, might have made considerable contributions to the study of inscriptions, had he lived longer. A beginner in 1810, he developed from a star student at Fort William College into a distinguished Sanskrit scholar during his posting in Banaras and engagement there with pandit teachers at Sanskrit College, for which he served as secretary of the directing committee.
Fell failed to point to specific help, but he acknowledged discussing inscriptions with "[m]any of the Pandits at Benares" (1825, AR 15: 458). Fell's devotion to inscriptions and other antiquities may have hastened his death. He died of a fever on 15 February 1824 at Bilaspur, en route from Nagpur to Banaras:
he had offered his services in exploring, on his route, those monuments of antiquity which are found in the district of Chutteesghur, especially in the form of ancient and undecyphered inscriptions. These, it was his intention to copy and convey to Benares, where he would have examined and translated them at leisure.5
Price, to whom we referred as a trusted translator of inscriptions, did not mention the help of pandits. Yet, it must be noted that, as an assistant professor and later professor at the College of Fort William from 1823 to 1831, he could command the time of the College's pandits.
Thanks to the various locations and career paths of its members, the Society benefited from a wide and diverse board of pandits. Wilkins' primary assistant was the Bengali Kasinatha, 6 settled in Banaras, whom Wilkins did not name, but whom Jones also consulted through Wilkins and tried in vain to hire (Cannon 1970: 665, 660, 683, 781). Kasinatha went on to be appointed the first rector of Banaras Sanskrit College, founded in 1791, and presumably to help other British scholars until his dismissal for financial irregularities in 1801 (Nicholls 1907: 3, 6). Jones consulted a wide circle of pandits (Rocher 1995 and 2007), and programmatically employed the Bengali Radhakanta and the Bihari Sarvoru Trivedi (Rocher 1989). Colebrooke's circle consisted primarily of Maithila pandits whom he recruited during his early postings in Bihar and who stayed with him through his Indian career (Rocher and Rocher 2012: 124, 201). From the South, a translation of an inscription communicated by Mackenzie, who made up for a lack of language skills with a network of helpers, was made possible by the "united efforts and knowledge" of "the Slisuis and Pandits at Triplicane" and his brahman assistants (1807, AR 9: 42.2.-23). This link with the Society became immediate when, upon being appointed surveyor-general of India, Mackenzie brought to Calcutta a large staff of South Indian acolytes, who, after his death, were placed under Wilson's supervision. After neither local brahmans nor Calcutta pandits were able to read the Rajim copper plates,it fortunately happened that the establishment of the late Col. Mackenzie possessed an individual, Sri Verma Suri, a Jain of great respectability and learning, who had been long engaged in decyphering the inscriptions of the Dekhin, and to whom the character of the Raju plates was familiar and he accordingly prepared a transcript of the plates and a copy in Devanagari.
It is worth noting, however, that Varma Suri was made to prove his mettle in a thorough examination by Wilson and Price, some of it "without previous notice or preparation," which he sustained "without any embarrassment or hesitation," before Wilson was satisfied that "little doubt could be entertained of his being really acquainted with the character." Varma Suri's intervention convinced Wilson that the main difference between this script and other forms of devanagari was that it was box-headed, with the prospect that "the facsimile of the plates with the Devanagari transcript, and the comparative alphabet will render these it is hoped decipherable generally in future" (1825, AR 15: 507).
Wilson's caution reflects the particular discomfort that British scholars felt with regard to epigraphic material in unfamiliar scripts. Three decades earlier, when asked to decipher Malet's inscriptions from Ellora, Wilford had reported an extraordinary discovery:I despaired at first of ever being able to decypher them: for as there are no ancient inscriptions in this part of India, we never had, of course, any opportunity to try our skill and improve our talents in the art of decyphering; however after many fruitless attempts on our part, we were so fortunate as to find at last an ancient sage, who gave us the key, and produced a book in Sanscrit, containing a great many ancient alphabets formerly in use in different parts of India; this was really a fortunate discovery, which hereafter may be of great service to us (1798, AR 5: 135).
A far more promising approach to the problem, indeed a short cut, seemed to be heralded in a letter to Jones from Lieutenant Francis Wilford, a surveyor and an enthusiastic student of all things oriental, who was based at Benares. Jones had been sent copies of inscriptions found at Ellora and written in Ashoka Brahmi, the still undeciphered pin-men. He had probably sent them to Wilford because Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, was the most likely place to find a Brahmin who might be able to read them. In 1793 Wilford announced that he had found just such a man:I have the honour to return to you the facsimile of several inscriptions with an explanation of them. I despaired at first of ever being able to decipher them... However, after many fruitless attempts on our part, we were so fortunate as to find at last an ancient sage, who gave us the key, and produced a book in Sanskrit, containing a great many ancient alphabets formerly in use in different parts of India. This was really a fortunate discovery, which hereafter may be of great service to us.
According to the ancient sage, most of Wilford's inscriptions related to the wanderings of the five heroic Pandava brothers from the Mahabharata. At the unspecified time in question they were under an obligation not to converse with the rest of mankind; so their friends devised a method of communicating with them by "writing short and obscure sentences on rocks and stones in the wilderness and in characters previously agreed upon betwixt them." The sage happened to have the key to these characters in his code book; obligingly he transcribed them into Devanagari Sanskrit and then translated them.
To be fair to Wilford, he was a bit suspicious about this ingenious explanation of how the inscriptions got there. But he had no doubts that the deciphering and translation were genuine. "Our having been able to decipher them is a great point in my opinion, as it may hereafter lead to further discoveries, that may ultimately crown our labours with success." Above all, he had now located the code book, "a most fortunate circumstance."
Poor Wilford was the laughing stock of the Benares Brahmins for a whole decade. They had already fobbed him off with Sanskrit texts, later proved spurious, on the source of the Nile and the origin of Mecca. After the code book there was a geographical treatise on The Sacred Isles of the West, which included early Hindu reference to the British Isles. The Brahmins, to whom Sanskrit had so long remained a sacred prerogative, were getting their own back. One wonders how much Wilford paid his "ancient sage."
Jones was already a little suspicious of Wilford's sources, but on the code book, which was as much a fabrication as the translations supposedly based on it, he reserved judgment until he might see it. He never did. In fact it was never heard of again. But in spite of these disappointments Jones continued to believe that in time this oldest script would be deciphered. He had been sent a copy of the writings on the Delhi pillar and told a correspondent that they "drive me to despair; you are right, I doubt not, in thinking them foreign; I believe them to be Ethiopian and to have been imported a thousand years before Christ." It was not one of his more inspired guesses and at the time of his death the mystery of the inscriptions and of the monoliths was as dark as ever.-- India Discovered, by John Keay
This was the same Wilford who, a year later, was to find out that pandit Vidyananda, of Banaras Sanskrit College, who assisted him, had forged Puranic passages destined to support Wilford's fanciful theories (Nicholls 1907: 6). For epigraphic material, the process was even more complicated, necessitating the several acts of deciphering, transcribing, and interpreting the contents. While pandits' superior grounding in Sanskrit language and literature was accepted, their familiarity with ancient and/or regional scripts was much in doubt. Colebrooke warned: "my experience of the necessity of collating the copies made by the best Pandits, from inscriptions in ancient or unusual characters, discourages me from placing implicit confidence in their transcripts" (1807, AR 9: 400- 401). He therefore advocated the necessity of facsimiles (cf. IE: 202), which Wilson was to heed with respect to the Rajim inscriptions.
Evidence is slim to determine how severely the withdrawal of pandit assistance affected the epigraphic work of members of the Asiatic Society after their return to England. Too few went home: Jones, Wilford, and Fell died in India. Prinsep returned too ill and too late to undertake further work. Price "lived to be oldest officer in Indian army; dying at age 99 (Boase 1965: 429), but is not known to have pursued oriental studies of any kind in retirement. Of the main authors of epigraphic studies in AR, only Wilkins and Colebrooke remained active in Britain, and only Colebrooke published further contributions on inscriptions.
Wilkins appeared to his European contemporaries to possess all requisite skills, having, in Jones's words, "performed more than any other European had learning enough to accomplish, or than any Asiatick had industry enough to undertake" (1788, AR 1: 1421. The translations of inscriptions he published often came as responses to requests from others -- Hastings, Wilmot, and the Asiatic Society. This pattern persisted after his return to England. His partial translation of the inscription in Portugal came in a letter of 20 July 1793 answering a request from Murphy (20 July 1793, Murphy 1795: 277-87). It is noteworthy that Colebrooke attributed his own ability to provide a fuller translation of this inscription to "the help of Pundits," which Wilkins no longer enjoyed in England (Life: 214). The Bonn Sanskritist August Wilhelm von Schlegel, who visited Wilkins in the fall of 1823, reported that the aging Wilkins "still entertain[ed] himself with deciphering old inscriptions and coins, occasionally discovering to his astonishment, after much puzzling, that he had already deciphered the same inscription some forty years ago" (29 Feb. 1824, Korner 1930: vol. 1, p. 409). Sir Graves Chamney Haughton recorded in his obituary of Wilkins that Wilkins helped William Marsden, his future son-in-law, "in decyphering the inscriptions on his Cufic coins," and that "[h]is last effort in the way of literature was a translation of a large antique seal, with a Sanskrit inscription, in an ancient and obscure form of Nagari, which he had decyphered many years ago" (1836, Asiatic Journal, n. s. 20:168-69). This inscription from Asirgadh (IE: 124-25) was published posthumously, with Wilkins' translation, comments by Wilson, and a letter of 1 July 1806 in which Capt. James Colebrooke explained how, after the Asiatic Society failed to respond to his submission of the seal he had discovered, he had turned to Wilkins as "the only probable chance he would ever have" of getting it interpreted (1836, JRAS 3: 377-80).
Of Colebrooke's many books and essays after his return to England, three articles, all written alter he founded the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1823) and initiated the publication of its Transactions (from 1824), dealt with inscriptions. These inscriptions were part of the collections of Francis Buchanan Hamilton in the East India Library and of James Tod in the Royal Asiatic Society. Since Colebrooke had not worked on them in India, he made no reference to pandits, except when correcting a misinterpretation by Buchanan Hamilton's pandit (1926, TRAS 1.2: 202). Colebrooke kept current with work produced in India and gave it priority, writing Wilkins on 17 November 1824:
I have lately been examining the facsimiles of inscriptions collected by Dr. Buchanan Hamilton. . . There are several sufficiently interesting for publication; but I believe I must await the arrival of the fifteenth volume of the Asiatic Researches for particular information of the inscriptions translated by Capt. Fell and inserted in it, lest I should be publishing what has already been given there (Life: 352-53).
Reading Fell's posthumous translations of inscriptions printed by Wilson, Colebrooke was moved to publish a note acknowledging Fell's correction of his conflation of father and son Vijayacandra and Jayacandra in his work on a copper plate from Banaras (TRAS 1.3: 462).
Inscriptions and Indian HistoryThe notion that inscriptions may serve as a source to study India's past (cf. IE: 3) did not fail to occur to early members of the Asiatic Society. After reporting how local brahmans "chuse to account" for past events at Mamallapuram, founding member William Chambers noted:
by comparing names and grand events, recorded by them, with those interspersed in the histories of other nations, and by calling in the assistance of ancient monuments, coins, and inscriptions as occasion shall offer, some probable conjectures, at least, if not important discoveries, may, it is hoped, be made on these interesting subjects.
He concluded: "The inscription of the Pagoda ... is an object, which, in this point of view, appears to merit great attention" (1788, AR 1: 157-58). Yet, the crucial importance of using inscriptions as a tool for retracing Indian history was not programmatically expressed until much later.
The fact that Wilkins published "[i]n the first volume (of AR) five papers ... , all except one being translations from ancient inscriptions," led one of his biographers to conclude that "Wilkins was therefore one of the first Europeans to realize the importance of ancient Indian inscriptions as sources for historical studies" (Lloyd 1978: 21). Yet, this inference is not supported by any known statement on Wilkins' part. Better in accord with evidence is E. H. Johnston's judgment: "That by this work he was laying the first stone for the edifice of ancient Indian history as erected by modern research does not appear to have dawned on him" (1940: 128).
The title of Jones's inaugural discourse, on 15 January 1784, announced that the Asiatic Society was founded "for inquiring into the history, civil and natural, the antiquities, arts, sciences, and literature, of Asia," and Jones expected that its members would "trace the annals, and even traditions, of those nations" (publ. 1788, AR 1: ix, xiii). But in none of his anniversary discourses did Jones refer to inscriptions. Nor did he mention inscriptions in the paper on Hindu chronology he read on 7 February 1788, based on
the Puranarthaprakasa, a compendium of the Puranas prepared by Radhakanta for Warren Hastings (Rocher and Rocher 1994-1995). Rather than to inscriptions, Jones pointed to astronomy for light on history:
on a subject in itself so obscure, and so much clouded by the fictions of the Brahmans, ... we must be satisfied with probable conjecture and just reasoning from the best attainable data, nor can we hope for a system of Indian Chronology, to which no objection can be made, unless the Astronomical books in Sanscrit shall clearly ascertain the places of the colures in some precise years of the historical age" (publ. 1790, AR 2: 145).
Nor did Jones allude to inscriptions in the supplement to that essay, which was based on astronomical texts forwarded by Samuel Davis' pandit, Radhacarana (17 June 1790, publ. 1790, AR 2: 389-403; cf. Rocher 1995: 65). Even in his tenth anniversary discourse, "On Asiatick History," Jones conceived of Sanskrit texts as the only sources for the study of Indian history (28 Feb. 1793, publ. 1795, AR 4: 1-17). In his first discourse to the Society after Jones's death, president [url=http://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=4204&start=170]John Shore quoted a paper in Jones's handwriting, entitled "Desiderata," which had come into his possession. One of these desiderata read: "The History of India before the Mahommedan conquest, from the Sanscrit-Cashmir-Histories" (22 May 1794, publ. 1795, AR 4: 188). Even though Jones made pioneering contributions to the early study of Indian epigraphy, he did not establish a direct link between inscriptions and the reconstruction of ancient Indian history.
In a letter to his father of October 1803, in which he discussed the discovery of new inscriptions, Colebrooke explicitly voiced the expectation: "By degrees the History of India will be partly retrieved from such monuments" (Life: 214). This privately expressed opinion long remained unknown, but it was Colebrooke again who, with a published statement in 1807, earned the distinction of having been, in Richard Salomon's words, "the first to clearly recognize the special importance of inscriptions as a source for the political and cultural history of India" (IE: 203).7 Two decades later, Wilson made importance for history the criterion by which to determine which in a group of inscriptions found at Mount Abu deserved to be fully translated (1828, AR 16: 284). Wilson also opened his observations on the Vijayanagar inscriptions with the statement: "The history of Vijayanagar is a subject of considerable interest in the annals of India" (1836, AR 20.1: 1). By that time,
in his first contribution to the Society's new Journal, Prinsep had emphatically stated that his work on an inscription on the Allahabad column had been motivated by his being "[a]ware indeed that the only accurate data we possessed for adjusting the chronology of Indian princes were those derived from ancient monuments of stone; inscriptions on rocks and caves; or grants of land engraven on copper-plates, discovered accidentally in various parts of the country" (1834, JASB 3: 114). Indian epigraphy had come of age.
Notes:1. Jones traveled to Bodh-Gaya, though "much indisposed," on his way back from Banaras, but was not up to visiting caves (Cannon 1970: 659).
2.
On the particular difficulty of consulting pandits for older forms of language (Vedic) or of script (in inscriptions), and objections raised by scholars in Europe, see Rocher and Rocher 2012: 25, 77, 105, 189.3. Lady Anna Maria Jones drew a sketch of the Vaidya scholar Ramalocana (15 Oct. 1785, reproduced in Franklin 2011: 315).
4.
Colebrooke was to amend one of Sarvoru's conjectural emendations: on the basis of a Sanskrit text, the Sarngadharapaddhati, he replaced the reading babujata with chahumana or chahavana, thus connecting the inscription with the Chauhan dynasty (1807, AR 9: 445).5. "Obituary of Capt. Fell," Asiatic Journal 18, July-Dec. 1824:265.
6. Misidentified as Kashmiri in Rocher 1995: 54.
7. See IE: 202-3 for the text of Colebrooke's progammatic statement.
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