Page:An introduction to Dravidian philology.djvu/68

Rh that have the inclination to utilize them. The importance of epigraphical records as aids to philological research can never be overestimated. They form trustworthy materials for determining the state of a language at any particular time and serve as checks on the readings found in manuscripts. It is obvious that manuscripts qua manuscripts cannot be absolutely relied on. The personal element of copyists, the difficulty of understanding ancient forms aright and hence substitution of forms with which the scribe in acquainted, errors of commission and omission, interpolations, the general defect of the absence of manuscripts which are more than three hundred years old, and many other factors besides must give us caution to proceed carefully in the editing of texts and show us the necessity to take in the aid of contemporary inscriptions. And yet this is a method which is very often neglected.