page_title: Early Indian epigraphy
section_title: Hathigumpha inscription
hierarchical_section_title: Early Indian epigraphy / Notable inscriptions / Hathigumpha inscription
caption_attribution_description: English: Image by LRBurdak
context_page_description: The earliest deciphered epigraphy found in India are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BC, written in very early forms of middle-Indo-Aryan languages in the Brahmi script. Samanam inscriptions in South India written in Tamil-Brahmi, Bhattiprolu alphabet and the Kadamba alphabet are also of relatively early date. Some Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions discovered at Keeladi, Palani, Erode, and Adichanallur, have been claimed to be as ancient as 6th century BC, but so far only the claimed pre-Ashokan inscriptions at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka have been published academically.
  If epigraphy of proto-writing is included, undeciphered markings with symbol systems that may or may not contain linguistic information,
  there is substantially older epigraphy in the Indus script, which dates back to the early 3rd millennium BC. Two other important archeological classes of symbols are found from the 1st millennium BCE, Megalithic Graffiti Symbols and symbols on punch-marked coins, though most scholars do not consider these to constitute fully linguistic scripts, and their semiotic functions are not well understood.
  Writing in Sanskrit appears in the 1st to 4th centuries CE.
context_section_description: The Hathigumpha inscription ("Elephant Cave" inscription) from Udayagiri near Bhubaneshwar in Orissa was written by Kharavela, the king of Kalinga in India during the 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription consists of seventeen lines incised in deep cut Brahmi letters on the overhanging brow of a natural cavern called Hathigumpha on the southern side of the Udayagiri hill near Bhubaneswar in Orissa. It faces straight toward the rock Edicts of Asoka at Dhauli located about six miles away.
caption: Hathigumpha inscription, Odisha
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