The Eastern variety of the epigraphic Alphabet of Northern India of the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. did merge, as Dr. Hoernle has observed, into the Western variety. Inscriptions, discovered after the publication of Dr. Hoernle's article, show the gradual changes in the epigraphic alphabet of the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., and tend to prove that this change is already in evidence in the first half of the 5th century. This displacement of the Eastern variety of the alphabet of this period by the Western must have been completed before the end of the first half of the 6th century.
The Allahabad pillar-inscription of Samudragupta shows the fully developed form of the Eastern variety and the test letters can be observed here to their best advantage. The next inscription, in the chronological order, in which the Eastern alphabet has been used, is the Udayagiri cave-inscription of Candragupta II, on which Dr. Bühler observes "The fact that Fleet's No. 6 is found far west, near Bhilsā in Mālva, may be explained by its having been incised during an expedition of Candragupta II, to Mālva, at the command of his minister, who calls himself an inhabitant of Pāṭaliputra."[3] Next we come to two new inscriptions both of which were incised in the year 113 of the Gupta era = 432 A.D.—
- (i) The Mathurā Jaina image-inscription.
- (ii) The Dhānāidaha grant.
