Sources and Historiography: Inscriptions, Coins, Texts and Monuments
This domain tests how historians convert surviving traces into evidence: inscriptions, coins, texts and monuments. Questions usually ask you to identify a source type, date it, test its bias, or decide which combination of sources supports a claim.
Source families
- Epigraphy: inscriptions on stone, metal or clay. Ashokan edicts use Prakrit in Brahmi and Kharosthi; the Junagadh rock inscription records Rudradaman; the Aihole inscription praises Pulakeshin II.
- Numismatics: coins reveal legends, portraits, metrology, minting and trade. Indo-Greek coins carry royal portraits; Kushana coins show ruler cults; Gupta coins commemorate marriages and conquests.
- Monuments: stupas, cave complexes, temples and forts show patronage, technology and ritual layout.
- Texts: Vedic corpus, epics, Puranas, Arthashastra, Rajatarangini, and foreign accounts by Megasthenes, Faxian, Xuanzang and al-Biruni.
Reading evidence
A source is not a transparent window. Ask who made it, for whom, in what genre, and what it omits. Corroborate one source type with another; a grant may prove a donation but not the donor's military success.
Worked example
A coin names a Gupta king and shows a horse sacrifice; a pillar inscription gives his genealogy; a later text calls him a conqueror. Reasoning: the coin and inscription are near-contemporary and independent, so the name and lineage are strong; the text is later and panegyrical, so conquest claims need cautious acceptance.
Traps
Do not call numismatics the study of inscriptions; do not treat a single source as conclusive; do not assume royal inscriptions are neutral; do not read a later text as a contemporary record.