A meaningful understanding of the pre-modern pasts of India stems from the recognition and explanation of identifiable changes in its socio-political situations, material cultures and religious experiences. Such changes need to be situated beyond dynastic shifts, although socio-economic and cultural developments were, of course, interlocked with the then politics and polities. Such an approach naturally negates the perceptions of the immutable social, economic and cultural (especially religious) institutions and practices over millennia in the subcontinent. The image of the unchanging East, typified by ‘traditional India’, which is perceived to have thrived on sanatana dharma, is largely constructed by preferring to represent pre-modern India through normative treatises (sastras), mostly written in Sanskrit and from a predominantly Brahmanical perspective and ideology. That the narrative literature may often present images of society, economy, political and cultural activities distinct from and contrary to the ideals upheld by normative treatises has of late gained considerable historiographical visibility. What needs to be underlined here is that the pre-modern pasts of India can hardly be grasped by the Sruti–Smriti literary traditions which leave a strong impression of memorialised orality, the practice of written words and documents, therefore, being reduced to marginality. The present review article precisely proposes to highlight the significance of written documents in the form of inscriptions for generating data and impressions of the pasts of India with certain distinctiveness which is hardly available in other categories of evidence, especially in the normative texts. This is not to claim that inscriptions are stand-alone sources for the study of pre-modern India. Inscribed texts, as

中文翻译：

---

评论文章：关于国家社会、物质环境和宗教情结的印度经验的雄辩铭文：整合与挪用（约 700–1600 世纪）关于国家社会、物质环境和宗教情结的印度经验的雄辩铭文：整合与占有-à-vis 拨款 (c. 700–1600 ce)

对印度前现代历史的有意义的理解源于对其社会政治状况、物质文化和宗教经历的可识别变化的认识和解释。这种变化需要超越王朝更替，尽管社会经济和文化发展当然与当时的政治和政体息息相关。这种方法自然否定了对次大陆数千年来不可改变的社会、经济和文化（尤其是宗教）机构和做法的看法。不变的东方的形象，以“传统印度”为代表，被认为在 sanatana dharma 上蓬勃发展，主要是通过更喜欢通过规范性论文（sastras）来代表前现代印度而构建的，主要用梵文写成，主要来自婆罗门教的观点和意识形态。叙事文学可能经常呈现与规范性论文所支持的理想截然不同和相反的社会、经济、政治和文化活动的形象，这一点最近获得了相当大的史学知名度。这里需要强调的是，Sruti-Smriti 文学传统很难把握印度的前现代历史，这些传统给人留下了强烈的口述纪念印象，书面文字和文件的实践因此被减少到边缘。本评论文章正是提出以铭文形式强调书面文件的重要性，以产生印度过去的数据和印象，具有某些独特性，这是其他类别的证据，尤其是规范性文本中几乎没有的。这并不是说铭文是研究前现代印度的独立来源。铭文，如