The work will be useful to scholars and students of history, culture, language and literature for understanding the growth and development of languages and scripts in interaction with the political milieu and cultural growth of a region.
I have no doubt that this meticulously researched, well documented book, which is highly technical and lucid too, will be received and read with great interest by the world of Indologists. But what I would like to mention particularly is that the researchers of the younger generation ought to adopt Dr. Acharya's methodology as role model for preparing similar monographs for other palaeographical segments of our country.
I congratulate Dr. Subrata Kumar Acharya for this rare accomplishment.
In writing the palaeography of Orissa I have tried to establish the evolutionary character of the Oriya script. The Brahmi script has been indisputably acknowledged as the parent of most of the regional scripts of India including the Oriya. While selecting nomenclatures for the scripts prevalent in the different sub-regional kingdoms of>ancient Orissa, I have followed the dominant stylistic peculiarities which distinguishes one style from the other, although they were all offshoots of the Brahmi. The box-headed, the acute-angled, the Kutila script, etc., which are some of the well-known writing styles prevalent in broader palaeographical zones made their flow into different sub-regional kingdoms and sufficiently reinforced their existing local styles. It has been, therefore, emphasized that the geo-political forces are the major determinants for shaping the writing style of a given region/sub-region. In the subsequent course of scriptal development, palaeographical segmentation ran parallel with linguistic segmentation. The advent of the proto-regional and regional script of Orissa is studied in the backdrop of this process. The seventeen palaeographical charts appended to this book trace the historical evolution of the scripts used in the epigraphic records of Orissa. The text should, therefore, be studied in conjunction with these charts. The letter-forms have been reproduced from the facsimiles of the original inscriptions published in different journals. Estampages of a majority of Oriya inscriptions have been consulted either in the office of the Director (Epigraphy), Mysore or in the collection of late Dr. K.B. Tripathi. Legends on coins, seals, sealings, terracotta objects, etc., which are not inscriptions in real sense have not been taken into consideration. While the work was in progress many new districts were formed, but whenever there is reference to a district, it should be understood as an undivided district. Photographs of some select inscriptions have been included in each chapter in order to acquaint the readers with the prevalent characters.
In the preparation of this book, I have received help and guidance of Dr. S.N. Rajaguru, Dr. S.C. Behera and Dr. S.C. Panda. I owe my special obligations to all of them. My thanks are also due to Prof. E.C.L. Duning Caspers (Institute Kern, Leiden) and Prof. R.N. Mishra (Jiwaji University, Gwalior) who examined my thesis and offered valuable suggestions. I am indebted to Dr. K.B. Tripathi who was kind enough to lend me the photocopies of the estampages of some of the Oriya inscriptions, which I consulted in this work with great profit. I am happy to acknowledge the financial help I received from the ICHR for publication of this work and the cooperation I received from the authorities of the National Library, Kolkata, the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, the Office of the Director (Epigraphy), Mysore, the Orissa State Museum, Bhubaneswar and the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla. My special thanks are due to the Director (Epigraphy), Mysore, for supplying the photographs of a majority of inscriptions included in this book. I am beholden to Dr. K.V. Ramesh who has been so kind to write a foreword to this work. I feel it my duty to thank the publishers, M/s D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd., New Delhi, who did their best to being out the book as nicely as possible. And finally, I would wish to thank my wife Geeta for constant encouragement.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist