Talk:Halmidi inscription

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Can someone who knows halegannada, or has access to reliable sources, please check my transcription (which I've typed from a handwritten note), and if possible add a translation? -- Arvind 23:45, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, not only Halegannada, the person must be an expert in Sanskrit too!

Manjunatha (21 Mar 2006)

Perhaps the transcription belongs on the Commons? Even a translation would probably belong there; what is needed for the article is an overview of the content and some context. --babbage 09:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Could someone give a translation. Aniket ray 06:17, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correct category?

Please see Category talk:Earliest known manuscripts by language. Enaidmawr (talk) 01:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dating Halmidi

I'm afraid epigraphists, paleographers, historical linguists, and (if a stone inscription is accompanied by other features like bas relief) archeologists are the scholars who date stone inscriptions. The information generated has secondary applications in historiography and philology, and experts in those fields weigh in with their observations. If you examine any of the Wikipedia pages on inscriptions, Thebes tablets, Bitola inscription, Duenos Inscription, Orkhon inscriptions, Phaistos Disc, or Dipylon inscription, the accompanying citations are precisely in these fields. Why should it be any different for the Halmidi inscription? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

"Epigraphists, paleographers...".. well. Epigraphists have dated it on paleographical grounds and paleographical dating has severe limitations when it comes to precision. Paleographists can only give ballpark figures (+/- 100 years per KVR per Saloman) and further refinement and vetting is the task of historians, linguists, anthropologists, historical linguists etc.,. And across disciplines, 450/5th CE is near unanimous. Your highlighting of just the epigraphists' dating is POV and UNDUE .. so much so.. even Saloman doesnt approve of it!.. he says, of paleographical dating... of "undated inscriptions" to be precise --
"...Because this method is inherently imprecise, paleographic dating should in general be treated as a last resort. Other dating techniques, such as historical analysis based on references to persons or events of known date, or chronological analysis based on linguistic or archeological data, may supersede or be used in conjunction with paleoographic estimates."
Clearly, it would appear rather uneducated or uninformed to keep harping on paleographical dating as the last word in the case of the Halmidi inscription - an undated inscription that it is. Every single work that has anything to do with Kannada language, literature, script, history etc., mentions this inscription without fail.. and clearly as we have found out, 450/5th CE is the clear favourite. Also, Burton Stein and Irfan Habib (good heavens!) are the last people we'd expect to find squatting on an article having to do with Kannada historiography. Stein atleast has done some work on Vijayanagara (and Cholas and general south Indian history) but I havent seen Habib within a hundred miles of anything having to do with Kannada and Karnataka! And you think his view is representative of Kannada historiography?! Pray, where are the real experts - the ones who have actually worked in the fields of Kannada/Karnataka/South India/Dravidian languages etc,.?
As for your remaining blah blah.. I'll just say that dont know what you're talking about.. but it does seem rather out of place here. You might want to check on those articles' own talk pages. If you didnt know, every article has its own talk page. Sarvagnya 00:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid you have selectively quoted both Salomon and myself. In addition, you have misunderstood what epigraphists do, as evidenced by your remark, "Your highlighting of just the epigraphists' dating is POV and UNDUE."
First, Salomon says a little more than what you are making him out to say. What he really says is:

"In the cases—all too frequent, especially among earlier inscriptions—where a record has no explicit date, or only a date whose absolute value cannot be definitely ascertained, epigraphists must resort to estimating the date on the basis of a paleographic analysis by comparing the script of the undated inscription with specimens of similar scripts from other dated or undated inscriptions. Because this method is inherently imprecise, paleographic dating should in general be treated as a last resort. Other dating techniques, such as historical analysis based on references to persons or events of known date, or chronological analysis based on linguistic or archaeological data, may supersede or be used in conjunction with paleographic estimates. But the fact remains that, since so many inscriptions are undated or inadequately dated, paleographic dating, imperfect as it may be, must be employed in a great many cases." (Salomon, 1998, pp. 168-169.)

Second, epigraphy is an all encompassing term which includes the fields of paleography, historical linguistics, and archeology when they are marshaled in the study of stone inscriptions. Epigraphists, therefore, do multiple duty, as historical linguists, historians, paleographers and archeologists. For example, D. C. Sircar, especially later in life, was better known as a historian of ancient India. Similarly G. S. Gai is a historical linguist of repute; along with A. N. Narasimhia and T. V. Venkatachala Sastry he is among the three leading scholars of Old Kannada. All that Salomon is saying is that, for an undated inscription, an epigraphist should first use tools of historical linguistics and archeology (two fields I mentioned above), and only then those of paleography. He is certainly not saying that the dating of inscriptions should take into account the views and passions of Kannada poets in a literary academy (Sahitya Akademi) who are drafted to write a page or two in a literary encyclopedia, much less of journalists writing enthusiastically about an "historical" event (the Hindu newspaper article). Those, sadly, were the references you had in this article before my references were added.
More importantly, it was the original dating (as well as K. V. Ramesh's defense of it) that used only paleographic arguments (see the main page). Gai, for example, uses different arguments in his alternative dating. Gai does not believe that Halmidi is an inscription issued in the name of Kadamba Kakusthavarman at all, but rather in the name of a less ruler who lived a century later and who was only maternally related to the Kadambas. His analysis is textual, based on how certain terms were used in pre-Old-Kannada and on comparison to other Kadamba inscriptions; in addition, as a supportive argument, on paleographical grounds, he differs with M. H. Krishna's original dating.
I'm afraid you are wrong in your assessment of both Burton Stein and Irfan Habib as well. Stein was not only one of the leading historians of Karnataka, but—on D. R. Nagaraj's evidence—his work has long overtaken the work of K. N. Sastry and other older historians. Irfan Habib is one of the great historians of medieval India, and is not only a specialist in his area of specialty, but also a generalist of great breadth: he is the general editor of the Cambridge Economic History of India and of the UNESCO History of Humanity, volumes IV and V; moreover, he has stated his assessment of "the 6th or 7th century" for the earliest Kannada inscriptions, in the "India" chapter of the UNESCO History of the Humanity, volume IV. (See the References in my version of the Halmidi inscription page). In a summary article, especially in such a widely respected history, he is obviously making that statement on the basis of a survey of the available literature.
In conclusion, I stand by my original statement, that it is epigraphists (scholars who study "written matter recorded on hard or durable material" in Britannica's characterization) who date inscriptions. Not poets and journalists, or even scholars in other fields who perfunctorily mention a date for the sake of completeness. The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (in the 2008 article on Kannada literature) or historians like Irfan Habib in the UNESCO History of Humanity weigh evidence in the epigraphic literature, when they conclude that the earliest Kannada inscriptions belong to the 6th or 7th century. It is imperative that we do the same. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
PS I am ignoring of course, your uncivil asides, "it would appear rather uneducated or uninformed," or "As for your remaining blah blah.." or "You might want to check on those articles' own talk pages. If you didnt know, every article has its own talk page." Nor will I say anything about your mocking of both Burton Stein and Irfan Habib ("but I havent seen Habib within a hundred miles of anything having to do with Kannada and Karnataka!"), other than pointing out that Habib has edited both Confronting Colonialism - Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan and State and diplomacy under Tipu Sultan: documents and essays. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

::On what grounds does Fowler claim this article is not under mediation? It has been mentioned more than a 100 times in the Rfc. It is very much a part of the mediation and only the mediator, user:Abecedare should be editing it.Dineshkannambadi (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)