Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages

Richard Salomon's guide works from the physical inscriptional record itself, the methods actually used to read, date and place an inscription in Sanskrit, Prakrit or a related Indo-Aryan language, rather than summarizing what inscriptions are said to show. That grounding in method a reader could in principle apply to a real inscription is the book's real basis. This record has not independently traced a documented history of scholarly disagreement with Salomon's specific dating methods. It is the right source for facts about inscriptional evidence itself, script development and how inscriptions are dated and read. Its scope is the discipline of epigraphy, not a general history of the religions or dynasties an inscription happens to mention, so the historical or religious meaning of a specific inscription is better drawn from a specialist study of that inscription.