Hyderabad: India’s first National Museum of Epigraphy is being set up at the famed Salar Jung Museum adding another feather in Hyderabad’s historical cap.
The museum, under the Union Ministry of Culture, is the first of its kind in the country, which have information about the writing, scripts and languages using multimedia installations.
G Kishan Reddy, Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region, will lay the foundation stone for the unique museum on Monday. The cost of the project is about Rs 5 crore.
Museum to be housed in Salar Jung Museum
Salar Jung Museum authorities had earmarked about 6000 sft area exclusively for the National Epigraphy Museum in the existing museum building and the work on the project is going on. Ashish Goyal, IIS is the Director of the Salar Jung Museum.
The space was allotted for the museum during the tenure of the past director of the museum A Nagender Reddy.
Union Finance Minister in her budget speech last year had announced setting up of Bharat Shared Repository of Inscriptions (Bharat SHRI), a digital epigraphy museum with digitization of one lakh ancient inscriptions in the first stage. The Bharat SHRI will be setup by the Archaeological Survey of India
“It will be a unique and first of its kind museum in the country. The project was announced during my tenure and I am happy it is taking shape. It will house epigraphy materials in digital etc. form, from all over the country,” Nagender Reddy told Siasat.com.
In the undivided Andhra Pradesh, the government had officially started the epigraphy section on December 2, 1964 in the Dr YSR A P State Museum of the Department of Archaeology and Museums in Hyderabad. It is located in Public Gardens.
The Epigraphy section was asked to collect lithic, copper plate inscriptions, palm leaf manuscripts and paper manuscripts by conducting village to village survey in the districts and to publish the collected material.
During epigraphically survey the Department of Archaeology and Museums has collected 5375 estampages belong to the different dynasties and which had ruled the Andhra desa which are primary sources for reconstructing the history of Andhra Pradesh.
So far the Department has published inscriptions collected from three districts– Kadapa in three volumes, Kurnool in two volumes, Anantapur one volume.
Palm leaf manuscripts
The Department has collected palm leaf manuscripts that belong to different periods. The life of the palm leaf manuscripts is only 300 years.
Paper manuscripts
In olden days people used the handmade paper nearly 200 years ago. In those days, Itihasas, Ayurveda and other traditional and devotional writings were available on paper manuscripts. Now, 150 years old paper manuscripts are available.
Epigraphy is Greek word
Epigraphy is the study of writings engraved on stone, metal, wood, shell and other materials known as “inscriptions” or “epigraphs.”
It is derived from two Greek words—epi meaning on or upon and graphie meaning to write.
Though engraving is the chief characteristic of an epigraph, there are some exceptions where old writings in ink on rocks, boulders, etc., are also accepted as epigraphs.
A person who is engaged in the decipherment and interpretation of the epigraphs is called an ‘epigraphist’.
Across India and world, a lot of importance is now given to epigraphical studies.
Recently, Dr MCR HRD IT’s Centre for Telangana Studies, Hyderabad, took the initiative to collect and compile all published inscriptions belonging to Telangana State and placed them in chronological order.
This is a work of a total of four volumes. Volume-I – Pre-Kakatiya Telangana – includes the inscriptions from first century AD to those of the Western Chalukyas of Kalyana – overlords of Telangana. Volume-II – Imperial Kakatiyas – include inscriptions from early Kakatiya to first imperial ruler Kakatiya Ganapati Deva. Volume-III – Decline of Kakatiya’s – includes the inscriptions of Rudrama Devi and Pratapa Rudra-II.
Volume-IV Post-Kakatiya Telangana – includes inscriptions of rulers that succeeded the Kakatiyas which will help and fulfil the needs of the scholars and historians engaged in the historical research of Telangana State.
Devender Malothu (Research Scholar) of Department of History and Tourism Management, Kakatiya University who studied inscriptions of the Satavahanas, the Ikshvakus and Vishnukundins reported from the Telangana region throws light on socio-economic, religious and political conditions of those times.
Epigraphy Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India came into existence in the year 1886 at Bangalore.
British who were the first to realise the importance of inscriptions for the reconstruction of our country’s history, opened a separate branch under their administration for the collection of inscriptions.
Since then, the Epigraphy Branch has not only collected thousands of inscriptions, but also edited and published them. After some years this branch was shifted to Ootacamund in 1903 and functioned there till 1966 and thereafter, it was shifted to Mysore where it continues to function.
Later, a separate branch for the study of Arabic and Persian inscriptions was established at Nagpur in the year 1950. Further, to accelerate systematic survey of Sanskritic and Dravidian inscriptions, two zonal offices were established at Lucknow and Chennai respectively in 1990.
Eminent epigraphists
Epigraphy Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India was headed by many eminent German, English and Indian scholars including Dr. E. Hultzsch, James Burgess, Rao Bahadur Venkayya, C.R. Krishnamacharlu, H. Krishna Shastri, Hirananda Sastry, B.Ch. Chhabra, N.L. Rao, Dr. D.C. Sircar and Dr. G.S. Gai.
The importance of the inscriptions lies in the fact that they generally offer information about personages and events of Indian history, about which nothing is known from any other source.
Apart from being vital political documents, inscriptions are endowed with great cultural significance.
Epigraphy provides slices of history
In a Vijayanagara inscription we are told that the emperor settled the disputes between a Vaishnava Jeer and a Jaina teacher by making them agree to be friends and raise no points of dispute.
Special privileges like the bride and bridegroom riding a horse in procession being allowed by royal command is also gathered from inscriptions. Inscriptions also throw light on other social customs. For instance, the Brahmadesam inscription refers to the sati committed by a queen of Rajendra Chola I.
The Mandasor inscription records the repairs carried out in the year 473-74 A.D. by the guild of silk-weavers to the temple of the Sun God (Dipta-rasmi).
There are some inscriptions which inform about the prevalence of the tradition of dance and music. Perhaps the earliest reference to a dancer is found from an inscription from Jogimara cave (3rd century B.C.). It mentions one Sutunuka, the temple-dancer (devadasi) and her lover Devadatta, a sculptor from Varanasi.
Sanskrit continued to be employed in the inscriptions of all parts of India along with regional languages in the subsequent centuries.
The copper-plate charters of the Pallavas, the Cholas and the Pandavas are written in both Sanskrit and Tamil languages. Kannada is used in inscriptions from about the 5th century A.D. Inscriptions in Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, appeared in later period. They are slices of history mirroring their times and life.
