Kashmir has the unique fortune in having recorded history in Sanskrit and Persian and the writers on the history and Culture of Kashmir have based their account mainly on the literary sources and have not felt it necessary to tap the epigraphical sources as well and to check the result with the contemporary epigraphical data.
However the importance of epigraphy as a valuable source of history can hardly be overlooked and such an attempt has been made in the present monograph to edit for the first time the important inscriptions discovered from various places in Kashmir and having a bearing on the history and culture of Kashmir. Attempt has also been made to analyse critically the content of the important inscriptions of Kashmir to see what light they throw on the contemporary historical and cultural conditions.
The Extent Sanskrit inscriptions of Kashmir are in the Sarada Characters, Sarada is an important alphabet of ancient India. It having remained in use for several centuries in an extensive area of the north-west extending from Kabul to Delhi, including Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Nearly the entire extent Sanskrit literature of Kashmir is written in this script and its study is vitally important for the proper understanding and decipherment of the ancient Kashmiri Texts. Thus the work gives for the first time, with illustrative tables a systematic and comprehensive account of the origin and the development of the Sarada alphabet so that interested scholars and reserarch students any use it as a guide book for the study of the old Sanskrit Inscription and manuscripts of Kashmir written in this script and preseved in the important Museums and Manuscript Literature in India and abroad. |
