The Proto-Śāradā Project: Towards the edition of a new collection of administrative letters and documents from pre-modern South Asia

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Kathrin Holz
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 538708120

The project will pave the ground for accessing a comprehensive collection of administrative documents and letters from pre-modern India. The objects of the collection originate from the Indian North-West, most probably from the region of Punjab. All documents are inscribed in the so-called Proto-Śāradā script, a formal variety of later Brāhmī that was in use between the 6th and 10th c. CE in a rather large area reaching from Bihar in the east to “Greater Gandhāra” in the west (present-day North-Western Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan). The introduction of this new script is accompanied by the emergence of new political agents, known under the generic term Shahi, among them the Palola Shahis from Gilgit, the so-called Turk (or Kabul) Shahis and the Hindu Shahis. In order to better understand the historical and cultural context of the new documents, the project therefore aims at a comprehensive evaluation of this cultural complex that is characterized by the use of the Proto-Śāradā script in manuscripts and inscriptions. The period under consideration marks an important transitional phase in South Asian history: the transition from a predominantly Buddhist to a Hindu society, immediately before the Muslim invasions in North-West India. A preliminary study of the format, terminology, and content of these documents will create the conditions for the future complete edition of the collection. A PhD project will revise the editions and translations of a crucial text of the genre of epistemological literature, the Lokaprakāśa. In order to evaluate its importance for the social, economic, and cultural history of the Indian North-West, the project will also cover other so far understudied fields: For the first time, inscriptions and manuscripts written in the Proto-Śāradā script will be systematically collected, studied and used for creating a reliable paleography of the Proto-Śāradā script in the different periods and spaces of its use. A comparative paleographical analysis of these inscriptions and relevant manuscripts will allow to reconstruct the development of the script and the identification of scribes or scribal schools. The envisaged revision of the entire inscriptional corpus will provide a comprehensive edition of Proto-Śāradā inscriptions that represent an important source for the history of the Indian North-West in the 6th to 10th c. CE. Texts, images, and translations of these inscriptions will be published online. Written objects will be consequently studied with regard to their material and historical contexts. In connection with the output of the epigraphical and paleographical studies this will result in a better understanding of the so far obscure history and development of Shahi cultures. It can be expected that the project will contribute on different levels to the development of our field.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Ingo Strauch