INSCRIPTIONS.
Aufschrift, . . GER. I Inscripcion, . . . Sr.
Inscrizione, . . . . IT.
We read in the Old Testament of writings, engravings, pens, and books,—in Exodus xxiv. 7, xxv. 16, and mail. 15, 16, at least 1500 n.c.; in Job xiii. 26, xix. 23, 24, perhaps about the same age ; and subsequently in Psalms xl. 7, xlv. 1, lvi. 8, and lxix. 28, and in Proverbs iii. 3, at least 1000 years B.C. ; but the first authenticated in scriptions in India are those of the 3d century before Christ, engraved at Kapurdigiri, Dhauli, Girnar, etc. In the ten books (Mandala) of 1017 hymns in the Rig Veda, the art of writing is not even alluded to. At the time when the songs of the Rishis were collected, there is no allusion to writing materials, 'whether of paper (papyrus) or bark (liber) or skins, nor is there any allusion to writing during the whole of the Brahmana period of Vedic literature. Even during the Sutra period all the evidence obtained from them but leads to the supposition that though the art of writing then began to be known, the whole literature of India was still preserved by oral tradition. The statements of Megasthenes, and Strabo, and Nearchus, however, show that, in their times, the art of writing was known in India, and that it was practised before the time of Alexander's conquest ; nevertheless the origin of the Indian alphabet cannot be traced back much beyond the date of Alexander's invasion. The Lalita Vistara, however, one of the canonical books of the Buddhists, describes Sakya Sinha's entry into the writing school (li-pi-sala), and the alphabet that he is described as learning is the common Sanskrit alphabet. But in the times even of Nearchus and Megasthenes, letters do not seem to have been a vehicle of literature. Nearchus describes the people as writing on compressed cotton, Megas thenes as making inscriptions on mile-stones, and Curtius says they wrote on the soft rind of trees. The inscriptions generally supposed to have been engraved by Asoka, 300 years before the present era, with a view to promulgate the doctrines of Buddha, are therefore the oldest literary remains of India, but are upwards of 1000 years later than the era when the tablets were engraved 'on Mount Sinai, and when the Assyrians and Babylonians had formed great libraries, and were recording on tablets their military and civil transactions.
Nearly all that we know of ancient India, and of the countries on its north-western borders, with their former conquerors and rulers, has been ob tained by the investigations of learned men into the legends on the numerous ancient coins found in Afghanistan, the Paujab, and India ; and from the inscriptions found engraved on rocks and pillars, and in caves, in various places in India, in Kabul, and throughout the ancient empires of Iran and Assyria ; through Hadramaut and Oman, in several districts of N. Arabia, and through the north of Africa. These, with the more celebrated remains of Egypt, prove that literature was culti vated in those countries at a time when Europe was inhabited by painted or tatooed barbarians. Amongst others who have laboured to decipher these may be mentioned Wilkins, Jones, Cole brooke, H. H. Wilson, J. Prinsep, Dr. Mill, Norris, Dowson, Thomas, Bayley, Bhau Daji, Rajendra lal Mittra, Rawlinson, Sir Walter Elliot, F. W. Ellis, Colonel Mackenzie, C. P. Brown, General Cunningham, James Fergusson, Dr. Bur nell in the Asiatic Researches, and Journals of the Royal Societies, with Grotefend, Lassen, Bur nouf, and Oppert.
Many facts in history have been made known by the coin legends and rock inscriptions, and among others the extension of a Macedonian empire over a great part of North-Western India, and the conquest of the island of Ceylon by a Buddhist sovereign of India, three centuries before the Christian era.
Not less interesting are the inscriptions in the ancient Persian language, in the Assyrian or cunei form character, spread through the empire of the great Cyrus, which throw an important light on sacred as well as profane history. The clue to the discovery of the sense of these Persian records was obtained by Grotefend, Lassen, and Burnouf ; and, partly aided by it, though much more by his own ingenuity, Sir Henry Rawlinson was able to decipher many of these ancient historical engravings.