[Y-Indology] One language, Two scripts - a book review

[Guest guest]

A person should be judged by the right things he says and not by the

mistakes he makes.

Rajesh Kochhar

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> It would be hard to call Sushil, a professor of history at a

> distinguished university an uninformed person, but let me point out

> some things.

>

> First, he is the same person who wrote an article "The Farce That Is

> Hindi" in the Economic and Political Weekly. October 28, 2000.

>

>

> > [8] The Nagari script was used for writing Sanskrit and therefore

> > its use must have been restricted to a particular caste of the

> > Hindus. See Grierson, op. cit., Vol. I, Part I, Intro., and

> > Vol. VIII, Part I; see also Cust, op. cit., p. 48."

>

> I presume that he is thinking about Kayasthas, his own caste.

>

> It is true that Kayasthas specialized in writing (which is different

> from composing the texts), being scribes. However they wrote not for

> Kayasthas, but for anyone who hired their services. I am aware of

> several Jain manuscripts which were scribed by Kayasthas. A number

> of temple inscriptions are known which were scribed by Kayasthas

> (but were composed and engraved by others).

>

> Use of Devanagari was not restricted to Sanskrit. It was used for

> apabhramsha as well as various dialects of Hindi. Except for some

> pockets of India (in Delhi-UP region) most Hindus did not use

> the "urdu" script except for legal documents. The Jains of North

> India have composed texts in practically every century, many of the

> manuscripts have survived and can be seen. I have not yet heard

> about a single one being in Urdu script.

>

> For a 17th century Devanagari manuscript of Padmavat of Jayasi, see

> Hindi-Forum/message/473

>

> Incidentally does anyone have Sushil Srivastava's email address?

>

> Yashwant

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