The oldest inscription in the Society is the Bairat Edict of Ashoka, where James Prinsep first deciphered the Brahmi script in 1837, as well as the archives hold a great deal of valuable stone and copper-plate inscriptions, which record religious, historical, and administrative customs in different parts and through the centuries. These writings are invaluable sources of evidence about the early governance, religion, and cultural interaction in the subcontinent.