Epigraphist Snigdha Tripathy recently launched the book titled Descriptive Topographical Catalogue of Orissan Inscriptions. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 1: Snigdha Tripathy, an epigraphist, recently launched a book titled Descriptive Topographical Catalogue of Orissan Inscriptions to make the study of early history of Orissa easier for researchers.

The book contains many interesting inscriptions about the state in a deciphered form.

“It took me more than four years to compile the book by putting together deciphered inscriptions, research papers and publications. It is an effort to help researchers and epigraphists,” says Tripathy.

She was the former epigraphist at the Orissa State Museum and had retired in 2003. “When I joined the museum as an epigraphist in 1969, I just had a masters degree in history. Later, when I went on to do my research, I found that Orissa has immense epigraphic wealth,” she says.

“In fact, what we know at present about the early Oriya history and culture is the gift of these indispensable sources discovered from time to time. The best example would be the Hathigumpha inscriptions that act as a window to the reign of king Kharavela,” she adds. The book presents detailed explanations of inscriptions related to the history of Orissa in two parts. The first part describes the engravings found at sites in all the districts of Orissa while the second part has amazing revelations on Orissa’s past found at temples and historic architectural sites in states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

“During ancient times pilgrims as well as kings and their soldiers use to visit places beyond the state for various reasons. The study of Oriya inscriptions thus is a part of the study of Indian epigraphy as a whole,” explains Tripathy. German Indologist Hermann Kulke has written the foreword of the book.

“Snigdha has put in a lot of hard work after her retirement to compile many deciphered works as well as some new inscriptions that were not deciphered yet. She herself decoded more than 20 copper plate inscriptions,” says Kulke.Although the objective of the book is to assist researchers, historians and epigraphists, Tripathy feels the passion for epigraphy as a subject is dismal in Orissa.

“In present times the study of epigraphy is no longer popular among scholars of Orissa. The reason for this is the difficult nature of epigraphical research that needs mastery over ancient languages like Sanskrit and Prakrit,” she says. The sexagenarian believes inscriptions are storehouses of the cultural, social and economic aspects of history of a place.

“Although there’s a lot of scope to study inscriptions and utilise them to solve the jig saw puzzle of Oriya history, it needs lots of patience, sincerity and in-depth study of linguistics,” she says.