The Kamarupa inscriptions are a number of 5th-century to early 13th-century rock, copper plate and clay seal inscriptions associated with the rulers and their subordinates of the
Kamarupa region. The common language of these inscriptions is
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
. The earliest of these inscriptions, the
Umachal and
Nagajari-Khanikargaon rock inscriptions, belong to the 5th century and written in a script which was nearly identical to the eastern variety of the
Gupta script. There is a steady evolution in the script over the centuries, and last of the scripts, for example the Kanai-boroxiboa inscription using a proto-Assamese script. The script in this period is called the
Kamarupi script
Kamarupi script (Kamrupi script, ancient Assamese script) was the script used in ancient Kamarupa from as early as 5th century to 13th century, from which the modern Assamese script eventually evolved. In the development of the Assamese script, ...
, which continues development as the Medieval Assamese script from the 13th to the 19th century and emerges as the modern
Assamese script
Assamese may refer to:
* Assamese people, a socio-ethnolinguistic identity of north-eastern India
* People of Assam, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious people of Assam
* Assamese language, one of the easternmost Indo-Aryan language ...
.
Though the language is Sanskrit, there appear systematic Prakriticisms that indicate an underlying colloquial Indo-Aryan language, called
Kamarupi Prakrit
Kamarupi Prakrit is the postulated Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) Prakrit language used in ancient Kamarupa (5th–13th century). This language is the historical ancestor of the Kamatapuri lects and the modern Assamese language;"In this study ...
.
["... (it shows) that in Ancient Assam there were three languages viz. (1) Sanskrit as the official language and the language of the learned few, (2) Non-Aryan tribal languages of the Austric and Tibeto-Burman families, and (3) a local variety of Prakrit (ie a MIA) wherefrom, in course of time, the modern Assamese language as a MIL, emerged." ]
List of inscriptions
The list below is from , and the numbers in the list correspond to the ones given in the find spot map.
Notes
References
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Indian inscriptions
Kamarupa (former kingdom)