On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c3: Preface to the Second Edition
On the Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet c3
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- English
Preface to the Second Edition
c3.1
As the few separate copies of the Indian Studies No. III, struck off in 1895, were sold very soon and rather numerous requests for additional ones were addressed both to me and to the bookseller of the Imperial Academy, Messrs. Carl Gerold's Sohn, I asked the Academy for permission to issue a second edition, which Mr. Karl J. Trübner had consented to publish. My petition was readily granted. In addition Messrs. von Hölder, the publishers of the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, kindly allowed me to reprint my article on the origin of the Kharoṣṭhī, which had appeared in vol. IX of that Journal and is now given in Appendix I. To these two sections I have added, in Appendix II, a brief review of the arguments for Dr. Burnell's hypothesis, which derives the so-called letter-numerals or numerical symbols of the Brāhma alphabet from the ancient Egyptian numeral signs, together with a third comparative table, in order to include in this volume all those points, which require fuller discussion, and in order to make it a serviceable companion to the palaeography of the Grundriss. The chapters on the Brāhmī and the Kharoṣṭhī have been throughout revised and the first has been changed most. A new comparative table of the Semitic and Brāhma signs,¹ the same as has been used for the Grundriss, has been given. The Additional Note at the end has been omitted, as, since the appearance of M. Sylvain Lévi's article¹ on the Turkish kingdom of Northwestern India, it is no longer required, and a number of other alterations and additions has been made in accordance with the results of further researches.
c3.2
¹ In using the plates, those of the Grundriss ought always to be compared, as the signs given there are mechanical reproductions from impressions and as such more reliable than any drawn by hand.
c3.3
Thus the list of the passages from the Jātakas, which mention writing communication from Dr. B. Liebich (p. 120 f.) has put me in possession of the proof that the Bengal schoolmasters until a very recent period used a set of twelve such tables, called *phalā* or in Sanskrit *phalaka*, which term the Chinese expressions *chang* and *fan* probably are intended to render.
c3.4
Dr. Grierson’s important researches at Mahābodhi Gayā, the results of which lately have been reprinted in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1896, p. 52 ff., have made it necessary to rewrite the passage (p. 31 f.) on the remnants of the masons’ alphabet, found there by Sir A. Cunningham, though the general conclusions to be drawn from them remain the same. A communication, kindly placed at my disposal by M. Sylvain Lévi, has furnished from Chinese sources a distinct tradition (p. 33), asserting that the signs for the liquid vowels really are later additions to the Brāhma alphabet, as the statement of the Jaina scriptures regarding the original number of its characters and the palaeographic evidence suggested. Mr. Rapson’s discovery of syllables, both in Brāhmī and Kharoṣṭhī, on the Persian *sigloi* (pp. 51, 113) has further corroborated the conclusions regarding the early prevalence of both alphabets in Northwestern India and has raised a strong presumption that both alphabets were used in the same districts already in the fourth century B. C. during the Akhaemenian period. Finally, Mr. Takukusu’s article on Pali Elements in Chinese has brought us the news that the tradition, asserting an early preservation of the Buddhist scriptures in MSS., is more ancient than the statement in the Life of Hiuen Tsiang could lead us to suppose, and nearly, if not quite as old as the contradictory statement of the Dīpavaṁsa and the Mahāvaṁsa (p. 91, note). And the most important discovery of a Kharoṣṭhī MS. at Khotan shows that during the Kuṣana period Buddhist MSS. did exist in Northern India and probably had been in use for some time (p. 122 f.).
c3.5
While the new facts, contained in these recent contributions, have been duly utilised, it has not been possible to pay much attention to M. J. Halévy’s two controversial papers in the Revue Sémitique of 1895, pp. 223 ff., 372 ff., beyond omitting in note 1 on p. 52 his derivation of the Brāhma numeral symbol for 8 (supposed to contain the first two letters of *aṣṭa*), from the Kharoṣṭhī *kha*, which, as he now tells us, is a misprint for *aś* (a non-existing and impossible ligature¹ originally invented by Dr. I. Taylor), and beyond adding a protest against the derivation of the circular cipher, which belongs not to the ancient Brāhma system of numeral symbols but to the later decimal notation, from the Kharoṣṭhī *da*.²
c3.6
¹ The supposition that such a ligature is possible, betrays a want of acquaintance with the principles of Indian spelling. The Hindus divide *a-ṣṭa* (not *aṣ-ṭa*), *i-ṣṭa* (not *iṣ-ṭa*) *u-pta* (not *up-ta*) and so forth. Their ligatures represent elements of one and the same syllable, and hence they do not, and cannot, form ligatures like *aṣ* or *aś*, *iṣ*, *up* etc.
c3.7
² It is a matter of course that M. Halévy sticks to the derivation of the Brāhma symbols for 4—9 from the Kharoṣṭhī initial letters of the Sanskrit numerals. The untoward fact that, except in the case of 5, either the supposed phonetical values or the forms of the signs do not agree with the requirements of the theory, is easily got over. The busy Gandharian inventors of the Brāhma symbols, we are told, had no time to look up Pāṇini, and so they put *cha* for *catuḥ* and so forth. Again if the contemporaneous forms of the symbols and the letters will not agree, those of different periods are chosen for comparison, and *e. g.* the Brāhma 6 of the 3^rd cent. B. C. is declared to be a modification of the “cursive” Kharoṣṭhī *sa* of the 1^st cent. B. C. The equally untoward fact that the Brāhma numeral signs include symbols for 20—100 and for 1000, which cannot be derived from Kharoṣṭhī letters, is carefully kept out of sight.
c3.8
I regret that I have not been able to find in the two, somewhat excitedly written, articles any facts or suggestions, likely to benefit serious students of Indian antiquities. While repeating the ingenious, but extravagant, theories of the earlier paper, they teem in addition with statements which, though put forward with the author’s characteristic apodictiveness and self-confidence, fill the Sanskritists rather with astonishment than with respectful admiration, and which fully justify their continued unwillingness to take his opinions on Indian matters into serious consideration. There is hardly a single subject of Indian research, on which they do not contain assertions, conflicting with perfectly well known and undisputed facts.
c3.9
The quality of their scholarship and method is perhaps best illustrated by the results of the ‘*examen sérieux*’ of the age of the Jātakas represented on the Stūpas of Sānchi and Bharahut,³ which, as it would lose in effect by curtailment, I translate in full:— “These monuments offer inscriptions in Aśoka characters; these insrs consequently cannot be earlier than B. C. 221, because otherwise the writing would run from the right to the left, as in the legend of the Eran coin. How far can the lower limit of their date go? Let us not put it too close to the relic caskets of Bhaṭṭiprolu, which are at least fifty years later, and which show already some altered forms, and let us put between the latter and the Stūpas an interval of twenty years. The inscriptions of Sanchi and Bharahut date therefore from about 191, *i. e.*, one hundred and thirty four years later than the introduction of writing (*quaere, of the Brāhma letters?*) into India. It is in this interval that the composition (*sic*) must necessarily be placed, in the middle of the Greek epoch and in no way in the Persian period. Very luckily for us, the Katahaka-jataka (*sic*) mentions the writing-board, *phalaka*, and the texts of the Stūpas the canonical term *piṭaka* “a box for tablets of card-board or wood”, in which the Jainas usually keep their MSS.,¹ with its derivative *peṭaki* “he who knows the Piṭaka or Piṭakas”, where naturally not the box, but the tablets or leaves, contained in it, are meant. These are real revelations; for the terms *phalaka* and *piṭaka*, which have no etymology in Sanskrit,² are nothing but the Greek words πλαξ (-κός) and πιττάκιον;³ the identity of sound corresponds to the identity of meaning. The Jatakas (*sic*) carry on their forehead the date of their birth, to wit, the century which follows the conquest of Alexander.”’
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³ Nouvelles Observations sur les Écritures Indiennes, p. 18f. (Revue Sém., p. 241 f.).
c3.11
¹ “*Piṭaka* is only “a box” and corresponds to the modern *ḍābado* or card-board of wood (*sic*) in which the Jainas usually keep the MSS. of their parish libraries. (O. I. BA., p. 87.)”
c3.12
² “The root *phal* ‘to profit’ gives birth to *phalaka* “profit, gain” and (metaphorically) “the catamenia”, but does not explain the homophonous *phalaka* “board, *plaque* and tablet”.
c3.13
³ “These two words have the identical meaning of “*plaque*” and “tablet”. In Syriac פלקוס is the same as לוחא (Duval, B. B., p. 1575) and פתקא (also very common in the Talmud) means “leaflet, leaf”. Πιττάκιον is a popular word, which has come into literary use only rather late; but its antiquity is guaranteed by the proper name Πίττακος (*sic*) borne by one of the Seven Sages of Greece, a contemporary of Solon. The word ἄσπρον “*un blanc*” presents an analogous case; though it has come late into literary use, one finds it once in an ancient decision of the Mišna (Ma'asêr šêni II אספרי כסף) and in the *Açpereno* of the Avesta.”
c3.14
What occurs to a Sanskritist with regard to this remarkable statement of results, is as follows:—
c3.15
(1) The assumption that all the Aśoka inscriptions date from B. C. 221, which is the basis of M. Halévy’s contention that no inscription in Aśoka characters can be older than B. C. 221, and which is another version of his statement on p. 12, declaring the Aśoka edicts to have been incised about (*vers*) 221, is a sad blunder which a writer on Indian palaeography ought not to make. And it is the more unpardonable, as Professor Max Müller, whose Hibbert Lectures, translated by M. J. Darmesteter, M. Halévy quotes (p. 12, note 1) as his authority, explicitly gives B. C. 221 only as the date of the so-called three New Edicts of Sahasrām, Rūpnāth and Bairāt, following my calculations, and does not touch the question of the dates of the other numerous Aśoka inscriptions.
c3.16
The dates of the incision of the following Aśoka inscriptions are clearly ascertainable and undisputed, (1) of the Barābar Hill Cave inscrs *A* and *B*, dated in Aśoka’s 13^th year, (2) of the Barābar H. C. inscr. *C*, dated in the 20^th year, (3) of the Niglīva and Paḍeria pillar inscrs, dated in the 21^st year, (4) of the first six so-called Pillar Edicts, dated in the 27^th year, and (5) of the seventh edict on the Dehli-Sivalik pillar, dated in the 28^th year. If Aśoka’s coronation is fixed with Professor Max Müller in B. C. 259, these inscriptions range from B. C. 246—231; according to Professor Lassen’s views they would fall each four years earlier, and according to Professor Kern, six years. As far as the evidence of the Aśoka edicts goes, the Sānchi and Bharahut inscriptions might, therefore, be placed at least a quarter of a century earlier than the ‘examen sérieux’ assumes.
c3.17
(2) An undated fragment of an Aśoka edict, found on one of the broken gate-pillars of the Sānchi Stūpa, proves that the structure certainly existed before the end of that king’s reign or, with Prof. Max Müller’s initial date, before B. C. 222/21, and the presumption is that all the Sānchi inscriptions, showing Aśoka characters, were incised before that year. By the attempt to fix the erection of the Sānchi Stūpa between B. C.
c3.18
221—191, M. Halévy collides with the clear epigraphic evidence, and commits a mistake which he might easily have avoided, if he had looked up the works on Sānchi. His attempt to drag down the age of the Bharahut Stūpa goes against the probability, as the inscriptions on the representations of the Jātakas show the same characters as the Aśoka edicts. All these representations thus give the reign of Aśoka as the *lower* limit for the *existence* of the Birth-stories. They teach nothing definite regarding the time of the composition of these fables, except in so far that they raise the presumption of their having been long current and generally known. For the archaeology of all nations proves that myths and scenes from religious legends are transferred to stone only when they have become thoroughly familiar to the people. Consequently, the assertion that the composition of the Jātakas must “necessarily” be placed between B. C. 221—191, is not warranted.
c3.19
(3) M. Halévy’s attempt to bring the Jātakas into the period after Alexander by deriving their term *phalaka* from the Greek πλὰξ and the word *piṭaka* (which itself does not occur “in the texts of the Stūpas”) from πιττάκιον, only shows that his knowledge of Sanskrit is open to improvement and that he does not even take the trouble to consult the standard dictionaries. Both words are regular derivatives from Sanskrit roots. *Phalaka* “a board”, comes from the very common verb *phal*, (*phalati*) “to split”, mentioned in all Sanskrit dictionaries, and means etymologically “a piece (of wood) split off”; compare the Latin *scindula* from *scindo* and the Greek σχίδα, σχίδαξ, σχίζα from σχιδ (σχίζω). The etymology is duly given in the larger Petersburg Dictionary under *phalaka*. *Piṭaka* means primarily and usually “a basket” (used for any purpose, as for carrying earth, storing meat, measuring grain, etc.), more rarely “a box”, as I have translated it, in which latter sense the cognate *peṭaka* is more common. Its employment to denote a receptacle for MSS., or the contents of such a receptacle, or a division of the sacred books, is mainly or entirely confined to Buddhistic literature. *Piṭaka* is derived from the Sanskrit root *piṭ* (*peṭati*) ‘to heap up, to store’, as the larger Petersburg Dictionary indicates under that verb, and it means etymologically “an implement for heaping up or storing (objects)”. Whatever may be the truth about the age of the Jātakas, these two words are certainly useless for M. Halévy’s purpose. The triumphant tone, with which he brings forward his supposed discoveries, and the display of misplaced learning in the notes, especially the appeal to king Pittakos’ name in support of the antiquity of the ἰδιωτικώτερον term πιττάκιον, make the passage most amusing to every scholar, possessed of philological training.
c3.20
To this specimen of M. Halévy’s scholarship and method may be added another, found in his remarks on *Kebuka* (N. O. É. I, p. 56), where he lays down the law to a native Pali commentator. “*Kebuka*, he informs us, is the name of a place belonging to *Seruma*; the idea of the commentator that it is the name of a river has not the slightest foundation.” And he then goes on to treat us to the ingenious conjecture that *Kebuka* is the Caucasus which, as he alleges, in Persian bears the name *Ḳabaḳ* or *Ḳabkh*, essentially corresponding to the Pali word. A Sanskritist who reads vs. 106 of the Jātaka, No. 327 (Fausböll, vol. III, p. 91):
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*Kathaṃ samuddaṃ patari kathaṃ patari Kebukaṃ* |
*Kathaṃ satta samuddāni kathaṃ simbalim āruhi* ||
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can only translate:—
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“How didst thou cross the ocean, how didst thou cross *Kebuka*, how the seven oceans? How didst thou climb the cotton-tree?”
c3.24
and recognises at once from the use of the verb *patari* “didst thou swim” or “cross in a boat”, that *Kebuka* has something to do with water and can only denote a river, a lake, an ocean, or water in general. The Jātaka No. 539 fully confirms this inference, as it says explicitly, *kebukaṃ vuccati udakaṃ*,¹ “*kebuka* means water”.
c3.25
¹ Fausböll, The Jātakas, vol. VI, p. 42, l. 11; compare also vs. 133, p. 32, where *kebuka* is used to denote a tank.
c3.26
If it were worth the while, the list of positive mistakes and more than hazardous speculations might be enlarged *ad infinitum* by examples from passages on Indian phonetics, epigraphy, antiquities, Dharma and so forth. Similar instances might also be adduced, where the papers show a weakness in other subjects, *e. g.* in Greek,¹ or collide with the statements of the Greek historians.² But what has been given, will be amply sufficient to convince even others than Sanskritists that a fuller discussion of their contents cannot serve any useful purpose.
c3.27
Recent utterances of Professors O. Donner, Konow, Ludwig, Macdonell, Oldenberg, Windisch and others on writing in India and on the Indian alphabets make it apparent that the object, for which the Indian Studies No. III and its supplement were written Brāhmī with its forms, pointing partly to very archaic and partly to transitional North-Semitic characters, may at any moment require modifications on account of new epigraphic discoveries in India or in Western Asia. And important epigraphic discoveries will, no doubt, soon be made in India, since of late ancient sites have been identified, which were famous places of pilgrimage before the times of the Mauryas.