Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5: I

On the Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet c5

Language
English

I

c5.1

Ever since Mr. J. Prinsep succeeded in deciphering the Edicts incised by order of the god-beloved king Piyadasi of Pāṭaliputra on the pillars and rocks of Eastern, Central and Western India, the attention of the European Orientalists has been directed to the question of the origin of their curious alphabet, which is the parent of all those now used from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas and of many others occurring beyond the confines of India proper. And, while there has been not much difference of opinion regarding the derivation of the second alphabet, in which Piyadasi's servants placarded their master's sermons in the Northwestern corner of his dominions, the views regarding the source of the more common characters have diverged very widely. There has been almost from the beginning a pretty general consensus that the alphabet of the Shāhbāzgarhī and Mansehra Edicts, called by the Europeans the Arian, Ariano-Pali, Bactro-Pali, Gandharian, Northwestern or Northern and by the Hindus *Kharoṣṭhī lipi*,¹ is, as the direction of its letters from the right to the left at once suggests, of Semitic origin, and that it has been derived from one of the later types of the Northeastern Semitic alphabet. But for the characters running from the left to the right, called by the Europeans Lāth, Southern, Indian Pali, Indian or Maurya and by the [2] Hindus *Brāhmī lipi*, not less than five different derivations have been proposed, of which a detailed demonstration has been attempted. The number of general, more or less vague, suggestions is even greater.¹ Leaving the latter aside, the five theories may be briefly stated as follows:—

c5.2

¹ Regarding the Hindu names of the two alphabets see below p. 23.

c5.3

¹ See the exhaustive review of earlier opinions in Dr. R. N. Cust's Linguistic and Oriental Essays. Second series, pp. 27—52.

c5.4

(1) According to Sir A. Cunningham the Indian Pali or Brāhma alphabet, is an Indian invention and is based on a system of indigenous hieroglyphics;²

c5.5

² Corpus Inscr. Indicarum, vol. I, p. 52 ff.

c5.6

(2) According to Professor A. Weber it is derived directly from the oldest Phoenician alphabet;³

c5.7

³ Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Ges., Bd. X, 389 ff.; Indische Skizzen, p. 225—250.

c5.8

(3) According to Dr. Deecke it is descended from the Assyrian cuneiform characters through an ancient Southern Semitic alphabet, which was also the parent of the Himyaritic;⁴

c5.9

⁴ Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morg. Ges., Bd. XXXI, 598 ff.

c5.10

(4) According to Dr. Isaac Taylor it comes from an alphabet of Southern Arabia, the parent of the Himyaritic;⁵

c5.11

⁵ The Alphabet, vol. II, p. 314 ff.

c5.12

(5) According to M. J. Halévy it is of a composite character eight consonants having been taken directly from the Aramaic alphabet of the fourth century B. C., six consonants and two initial vowels as well as the medial vowels together with the Anusvāra from the Ariano-Pali or Kharoṣṭhī, and five from the Greek; and this hotch-potch is alleged to have been concocted about 325 B. C.⁶

c5.13

⁶ Journ. Asiatique, série VIII, tome VI (1885), p. 268 ff.

c5.14

It must, however, be noted that the first among these theories seems to have been almost given up by its chief advocate some time before his death. For in his last discussion of the Indian alphabet⁷ Sir A. Cunningham says, “The origin of the Indian alphabet is still unsettled. According to Lassen, Dowson, Thomas and myself, its origin was indigenous, [3] that is, it was invented by the people of India. But continental scholars are generally in favour of its derivation from some unknown Western source”, and in the sequel, after criticising the latest theory, which he takes to be that of Dr. Taylor, he adds,⁸ “It seems not improbable that this old Indian alphabet, when it was first framed *or adopted*, did not possess any cerebral letters.” These utterances indicate that in 1891 Sir A. Cunningham himself no longer felt as certain of the soundness of his views as in 1876, when he wrote the introduction to the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. As far as has become known, they have not gained of late any new adherents, and with the death of the illustrious archaeologist they have probably become entirely a matter of the past. Sir A. Cunningham himself has furnished a very strong argument in favour of the opposite theory by publishing, op. cit., Plate XI. 18, a coin from Eraṇ, which shows an inscription in Brāhma characters running from the right to the left. This is really the link, which was wanted in order to complete the chain of arguments, proving the Semitic origin of the Brāhma alphabet.

c5.15

⁷ Coins of Ancient India, p. 38 f.

c5.16

⁸ Op. cit., pag. 41. The italics are mine.

c5.17

The remaining theories coincide in the main point that the ancient Indian characters are derived from a Semitic source, and Sir A. Cunningham is no doubt right, when he says that this is the prevailing belief among Sanskritists, not only however among those of the European continent, but pretty nearly all over the Western world. This belief is probably founded not so much on special studies in Indian palaeography, which, as well as epigraphy, are mostly neglected owing to the force of unfavourable circumstances, as on the general impression that certain Indian characters strongly resemble Semitic letters and on the conviction, supported in several cases by the clearest evidence, that the Indo-Aryan civilisation includes many and various elements, borrowed from Western nations, Semites, Persians and Greeks. But I doubt that even half a dozen Sanskritists could be found, who would care to make a definite choice between the rival theories, except in so far that they might be inclined to reject M. Halévy’s ingenious, but untenable combinations, which rest on *a priori* improbable assumptions [4] and partly on errors regarding facts, and which in their final results, *e. g.* the conclusion that the Vedas were composed in the time of the Mauryas, disagree with all the lessons taught by Indo-Aryan research.¹

c5.18

¹ With respect to the statement, that M. Halévy’s theory has not found much favour with Sanskritists, I would point to Professor A. Weber’s remarks in his paper “Die Griechen in Indien”, p. 17 (Sitz. Ber. der Berliner Akademie, 1890, XXXVII), to Professor A. Ludwig's interesting paper on "Yavanānī", Sitz. Ber. der k. Böhm. Ges. der Wiss., 1893, No. IX, to Mr. S. Soerensen's Om Sanskrits Stilling i den almindelige Sprogudvikling i Indien, Copenhagen 1894, p. 288, note 1, and to Professor Kern's remarks in Dr. Cust's Essay's, p. 39.

c5.19

My own attitude with respect to this problem has been for a long time exactly the same. During the last fifteen years, whilst I have devoted a portion of my time to early Indian epigraphy, it has been with me an open question whether the Brāhma characters came from western or from southern Asia. I have always believed in their Semitic origin. But I have vacillated more than once between their derivation from a pre-Himyaritic alphabet of Arabia and that from the ancient northern Semitic characters, which show almost identical forms in Palestine, Phoenicia, Cyprus and Assyria. And I have hesitated to take up the enquiry in real earnest, because it seemed to me that one preliminary condition to a new attempt on the problem was the preparation of perfectly trustworthy impressions and facsimiles of the oldest Indian inscriptions, and a second, the careful study of all these documents from a palaeographic and from a philological point of view. The first condition has now been fulfilled thanks to the unwearied labours of Messrs Burgess, Fleet, Führer, Hultzsch, Rice and Senart. Really good facsimiles of all the versions of the Edicts of Aśoka have been prepared and mostly published, as well as faithful reproductions of the closely allied, quite or nearly contemporaneous inscriptions in Daśaratha's caves, on the Bharhut or Bharaut and Sānchi Stūpas, on the Ghasundi slab, on the Sohgaurā Copper plate, in the Hathigumphā, Nānāghāt and Pabhosa caves. Moreover, the palaeographic store has been unexpectedly enriched by Mr. Rea's discoveries in the Bhaṭṭiprolu Stūpa, which have brought to light a new type of Brāhma characters, showing a certain independence, and, as it would seem to me on further consideration, at least some very archaic forms. The explanation of these [5] ancient documents, too, has so far advanced as is requisite for the palaeographic enquiry.

c5.20

Under these circumstances I believe it possible to resume the discussion regarding the origin of the Brāhma alphabet with some hope of success, and I may state at once that the results, at which I have arrived in general confirm the views of Professor Weber, who has already given the correct identifications for the majority of the signs. In the case of most of the letters it is, of course, now possible to adduce forms which come closer to each other than those which his table contains. This is chiefly due to the numerous discoveries in Semitic epigraphy, which have been made during the last thirty nine years. Mesa's stone, the oldest Sinjirli inscription and the inscriptions on the Assyrian weights, which are datable more or less accurately, each furnish something valuable. And these discoveries make it also possible to adhere strictly to the general rule, to be observed in such inquiries, that only the signs of one period should be chosen for comparison.

c5.21

Before I proceed to this comparison, it will be desirable to call attention to some passages in Indian literature, recently made accessible, and to some peculiarities in the oldest forms of the Brāhma alphabet, revealed by the new facsimiles and by a tabular arrangement of the signs, which I have lately undertaken for my „Grundriss der indischen Palaeographie“.¹ Both the passages in the literary works and the characteristics of the oldest alphabet point to the conclusion that the Hindus extensively used the art of writing at least about three centuries before the time of Aśoka their having been preserved by a purely oral tradition. From the heterodox literature he was only able to adduce a passage of the Lalitavistara which describes the first visit of prince Siddhārtha, the future Buddha, to the writing school, and from non-Indian sources the seemingly conflicting utterances of Nearchos and of Megasthenes, one of the most careless reporters on Indian subjects. Professor Max Müller's final conclusion was, therefore, that the art of writing became known in India about 400 B. C. in the middle of his Sūtra-period and that, then and even later, it was not applied to literary purposes.

c5.22

With the further exploration of Indian literature various additional pieces of evidence have come to light, which somewhat modify the above inferences and tend to show that writing was extensively used for the most various purposes at an earlier period. A closer scrutiny of the ancient Dharmasūtras has proved that there is at least one among them, the so-called Vāsiṣṭha Dharmaśāstra, which in general mentions written documents (*lekhya*) as a proof of ownership (XVI, 10) and enjoins in particular (XVI, 14—15) that in disputes about houses and fields the judicial decisions shall be given in accordance with the documents if the evidence of the neighbours disagrees, and that they shall be based on the statements of the old men and of the guilds, in case conflicting documents are produced.¹ Regarding the age of Vasiṣṭha's Institutes of the Sacred Law nothing definite is known. It is only possible to say that this work is a real Dharmasūtra, that it was originally composed for the use of the students of a northern school connected with the Ṛgveda and was considered to be of *general* authority before the eighth century of our era.² With respect to its relative position among the works on the sacred law, it is possible to assert that it is older than the famous Manusaṃhitā, where one of its rules is quoted and the name of its supposed author [7] is mentioned, while in its turn it quotes the ancient Dharmasūtra of the Mānavas, on which the homonymous metrical lawbook is founded.¹ It is also later than Gautama's Dharmasūtra and probably belongs to the period, when special law-schools had come into existence and taught the sacred and civil law iu rivalry with the teachers of the Vedic schools. These circumstances make it difficult to deduce from its mention of written documents more than the obvious general conclusion that the art of writting was commonly used in daily life and its importance for legal purposes was recognised during the period, when new Vedic schools were still founded, and that it is erroneous to consider the admission of written documents as legal evidence to be a distinctive mark of the metrical manuals of the special law-schools. On general grounds it is probable that the composition of the Vāsiṣṭha Dharmaśāstra falls some centuries before the beginning of our era. To such a conclusion points *inter alia* the fact that it is older than our Manusaṃhitā. But for the may deceive him, obtain his daughter and live comfortably'. He himself took a leaf (*paṇṇa*), wrote as follows, 'I have sent my son N. N. to thee; mutual connexion by marriage is suitable for us; give, therefore, thy daughter to this boy and let him live there; when I have time, I will also come', and he sealed the letter with the Sheth's seal. Then he took money for the journey, perfumes, clothes and so forth according to his pleasure, travelled to the neighbouring kingdom and stood before the Sheth there, respectfully saluting him. Then the Sheth asked him, 'Friend, whence hast thou come?' 'From Benares.' 'Whose son art thou?' 'The Benares Sheth's.' 'For what purpose hast thou come?' Thereupon Kaṭāhaka handed over the letter, saying, 'You will know it, when you have read this.' The Sheth read the letter, and exclaiming, 'Now I live indeed!', he gave him joyfully his daughter and established him there."\n1

c5.23

¹ Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIV, p. XXVI and p. 80. The first-mentioned passage is a verse, quoted by the author either from the tradition of the learned or from an older work.

c5.24

² Kumārila, Tantravārttika, p. 179, Benares edition.

c5.25

\n1 Fausböll, Jātakas, vol. I, p. 451, l. 22 ff.

c5.26

Again the Mahāsutasoma Jātaka mentions a correspondence by means of letters (*paṇṇa*) between a teacher of Takkasilā and his former pupils,² and the Kāma Jātaka³ narrates, how a prince, who had renounced the throne and lived in a village, was asked to write and actually wrote a letter (*paṇṇa*) to his brother, the reigning king, requesting a remission of the royal taxes for the people who had hospitably received him.⁴

c5.27

² Op. cit., vol. V, p. 458.

c5.28

³ Op. cit., vol. IV, p. 169.

c5.29

⁴ Compare also the Hārita Jātaka, No. 331, op. cit., vol. III, p. 498, l. 18, where the ministers send a *paṇṇa* to the king regarding Hārita's misconduct (reference kindly supplied by Prof. S. v. Oldenburg).

c5.30

An official letter is mentioned and its preparation is described in the Puṇṇanadī Jātaka,⁵ which gives an account of the manner, in which the future Buddha was re-installed in his position as Purohita of the king of Benares, after having been banished in consequence of the intrigues of his enemies. "Afterwards the king remembered his (*the Bodhisattva's*) virtues, and reflected thus, 'It is not proper to send somebody in order to call my teacher; but I will compose a verse, write a [9] letter (*paṇṇa*), order crow's flesh to be cooked, tie up the letter (*paṇṇa*) and the flesh in white cloth, seal it with the royal seal (*rājamuddikā*) and send it to him. If he is clever, he will come after reading the letter and recognising the crow's flesh; if he is not clever, he wo'nt come'. He then wrote the verse, which begins with the words *puṇṇaṃ nadiṃ*, on a sheet." Of course the future Buddha was clever, and came back to Benares.

c5.31

⁵ Op. cit., vol. II, p. 173 f.

c5.32

Further, some other passages mention official correspondence between kings. In the Cullakāliṅga Jātaka¹ we are told how powerful Kāliṅga, the king of Dantapura, eager for warfare, tried to pick a quarrel with the princes of India, whom he found disinclined to gratify his bellicose inclinations. In order to effect his purpose he sent his four beautiful daughters in a covered cart through the territories of his neighbours and ordered their guards to proclaim that any prince, who might take them into his harem, would have to fight their father. Assaka (*Aśmaka*), the king of Potali, dared to arrest their progress, and made all the four maidens his queens. Thereupon the Kāliṅga marched out with his army. But Nandisena, the minister of the Assaka king, the Jātaka continues, "hearing of his approach sent a royal decree (*sāsana*) to the following effect, 'Let him stop within the boundaries of his territory, let him not cross our frontier, *(else)* a fight will take place between the two kings'. When he *(the Kāliṅga)* had heard this letter read (*lekhaṃ sutvā*), he stopped within his own territory." Here the term *sāsana*, literally 'an order', is of considerable interest, as it is the representative of the Sanskrit *śāsana*, which occurs so frequently as the technical term for landgrants.²

c5.33

¹ No. 301, op. cit., vol. III, p. 4 ff.

c5.34

² Two other cases, in which letters, called *paṇṇa* and *sāsana*, are mentioned occur in No. 186, op. cit., vol. II, p. 104, l. 1. 8 and 9, and No. 462, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 133, l. 1. 4 and 9 (Oldenburg).

c5.35

Another case occurs in the Asadisa Jātaka,³ according to which seven kings besieged the town of Benares and sent to Brahmadatta, its ruler, a letter (*paṇṇa*), asking him either to give up his kingdom or to fight. The future Buddha, who was then Prince Asadisa, king Brahmadatta's elder brother, came to the asistance of the latter. He cut (*achindi*) on an arrow the following letters (*akkharāni*): “I, Prince Asadisa, have come, and shall destroy with one arrow the lives of all [10] of you; let those fly who wish to live,” and, being unrivalled in the archer’s craft, he shot his arrow on the knob of the golden dinner-vessel of the besiegers. The latter, who where just sitting at dinner, read the letters and, of course, speedily raised the siege.

c5.36

³ No. 181, op. cit., vol. II, p. 89 ff.

c5.37

The Jātakas contain also a passage, mentioning the use of writing for legal purposes. In the Ruru Jātaka¹ a debtor invites his creditors to come with the bonds (*iṇapaṇṇāni*), which he had given to them, to the banks of the Ganges in order to receive payment. The same Jātaka, (p. 257) mentions further the custom of inscribing particular important records or compositions on gold-plates. Khemā, the queen of Benares, had dreamt of a gold-coloured deer and had notified to her husband that she must die, if the deer was not found. The uxorious king composed this verse:—

c5.38

¹ No. 482, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 256.

c5.39

‘To whom shall I give a rich village and women decked with ornaments? Who will tell me of that deer, the best deer among deer?’

c5.40

which he caused to be engraved on a gold-plate. The plate he made over to his prime minister and caused the inscription to be read to the townspeople.² While in this case the text engraved is a kind of proclamation, we learn from the Kaṇha Jātaka³ that in rich families statements regarding the acquisition of property were preserved in this peculiar manner. The future Buddha, the story says, who had been born as the son af a Brahman possessing eighty millions, after the death of his parents “one day examined his treasury. Seated on a splendid couch, he caused a gold-plate to be brought and looked at the letters (*akkharāni*), incised on it by his ancestors, which stated, ‘So much wealth has been gained by such a one and so much by such another one’.”

c5.41

² According to No. 159, op. cit., vol. II, p. 36, the king of Benares caused the information about a gold-coloured peacock to be engraved on a gold-plate, which one of his successors caused to be read out (Oldenburg).

c5.42

³ No. 440, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 7.

c5.43

Three other cases, mentioned respectively in the Kurudhamma Jātaka,¹ the Tesakuna Jātaka and the Sambhava Jātaka are again different.² All three stories narrate, how particularly valued moral maxims were engraved on gold-plates apparently in order that they might [11] not be forgotten. In the first the inscription records at the king's command the Kurudhamma, the law of the Kurus, which is identical with the five great precepts, imposed by all Indian religions on laymen, ‘Not to slay, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to drink intoxicating drinks.’ According to the second story the future Buddha caused the *vinicchayadhamma* “the maxims concerning righteous judgment and the behaviour of kings”, which he had preached, to be perpetuated in the same way.³ In addition to these testimonies for the use of writing the Kaṭāhaka Jātaka, already quoted, gives a hint regarding the existence of writing-schools and the manner in which writing was taught in ancient India. But, this had be better reserved for a fuller discussion of that subject.

c5.44

¹ No. 276, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 371, 381.

c5.45

² No. 522, op. cit., vol. V, p. 125, compare No. 515, op. cit., vol. V, p. 59 (Grierson).

c5.46

³ According to Jātaka No. 509, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 488 f., information about hidden treasure was written on gold-plates. The same story narrates that Viśvakarmā wrote with *jātihiṅgula* on the walls of the *paṇṇasālās* which he built by order of Indra (Oldenburg).

c5.47

Equally valuable are a number of passages of the Vinayapiṭaka, which Professor Oldenberg's Index makes easily accessible. Writing (*lekhā*) and writers (*lekhaka*) are mentioned in the Bhikkhu Pācittiya II. 2 and in the Bhikhunī Pācittiya 49. 2. In the former passage writing is enumerated among “the excellent branches of learning, which are not blamed, nor despised, nor contemned, nor disregarded, (*but*) esteemed in the various countries.” In the Pārājika section a curious practice is forbidden to the Buddhist monks, in which writing plays an important part. “(*If one*) cuts (*chindati*), the text says, an inscription (*lekhaṃ*) to this effect, ‘He who dies in this manner, will obtain wealth, or will obtain fame, or will go to heaven,’ (*the cutter*) is guilty of a Dukkaṭa (*dushkṛta*) sin for each single letter (*akkharakkharāya*). (*If anybody*) sees the inscription, and forms the painful resolution to die, (*the engraver will be guilty*) of a Thullaccaya (*sthūlātyaya*) sin; (*in case the reader actually*) dies, (*the engraver will be guilty*) of a Pārājika offence.”¹

c5.48

¹ See also Prof. Oldenberg's remarks in Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIII, p. XXXII f.

c5.49

The passage indicates that it was the practice of religious teachers to incite their lay-hearers by the promise of rewards in the next birth to commit suicide, and that they distributed tablets of wood or bamboo with inscriptions specifying the manner of the death and the rewards to be gained. The statement is perfectly credible, as religious suicide, or suicide with the hope of rewards in the next birth, was very common in ancient India and even occurred not rarely within [12] the last thirty or forty years.² The Dharmasūtras and the metrical Smṛtis mention the voluntary death by starvation or by other more violent means and even recommend it to the hermits and to the other ascetics,³ and there are passages in the Mahābhārata, where ascetics, kings and others are recommended to put an end to their existence by starvation, jumping down from precipices, voluntary cremation and so forth. The Jainas were and are universally in favour of the ‘death of the sages’, though it has gone out of fashion in our days. And Hiwen Tsiang, Siyuki I, p. 232 (Beal) testifies to the prevalence of the belief that a jump from the Akṣaya Vaṭa, the sacred fig-tree at Allahabad, secured re-birth among the gods, as well as to the fact that it was acted on in the seventh century. Like the majority of the Brahminical teachers who, though giving the old rules, strongly disapprove of suicide, the Buddhists naturally opposed such practices. Their statement that written exhortations to suicide used to be given, furnishes another valuable piece of evidence for the very general use of writing in ancient India.

c5.50

² In January 1869 there was still a guard on the Girnār, in order to prevent pilgrims from jumping from the rock, called the *Bhairav jhâmp* ‘Bhairava’s leap’.

c5.51

³ See Manu VI, 31 and the passages quoted in the Synopsis to my Translation, Sacred Books of the East, vol. XXV, pp. 204, 557.

c5.52

Finally there are still two remarkable passages in the Mahāvagga I, 43 and 49, which are also of considerable importance for our question.¹ The first tells us that a *likhitako coro*, a thief whose name had been placarded or proclaimed in writing in the king's palace had been received into the order of the Buddhist monks. The people murmured against this and Buddha, of course, forbade for the future the admission of proclaimed thieves. The story confirms the hints, to be gathered from the Jātakas, regarding written royal proclamations. The second passage, which is literally reproduced in Bhikkhu Pācittiya 65. 1, and hence must be very ancient, describes in detail the deliberations of the parents of a boy of Rājagṛha, called Upāli, about their son's education. They agree that it would be beneficial for his future, if he learnt *lekhā* ‘writing’, *gaṇanā* ‘arithmetic’ and *rūpa*, literally ‘forms’. But [13] they find that the first art might injure his hands, the second his chest and the third his eyes. Hence they finally resolve to permit him to enter the order of the Buddhist monks, who are of good moral conduct, dine well and sleep in well sheltered beds.

c5.53

¹ See also the remarks on these two stories by Prof. Oldenberg in Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIII, p. XXXII f. and by D'Alwis, Introduction to Kachchhāyaṇa's Grammar, pp. XXVII, CXV f., 73—101.

c5.54

Even at first sight it seems probable that *rūpa*, *gaṇanā* and *lekhā* were the three “Rs”, or subjects taught in the elementary schools of ancient India, when the Mahāvagga was composed. This conjecture is confirmed by a remark, which king Khāravela makes about his own education in the Hāthigumphā inscription, dated in the year 165 of the Maurya era.² He says concerning himself:— **पंदरवसानि सिरिकुमारसरीरवता कीडिता कुमारकीडिका [|] ततो लेखरूपगएनाववहारविधिविसारदेन सवविजावदातेन नववसानि योवराजं पसासितं [||]**

c5.55

² Actes du VI. Congrès Int. Or. III, 2, p. 154.

c5.56

“Endowed with the body of a glorious prince, he played during fifteen years children's games. Then, being expert in writing, *rūpa*, arithmetic and legal rules and excelling in all sciences, he ruled during nine years as Caesar.”

c5.57

Dr. Bhagvānlāl renders the untranslated word *rūpa* by “painting”, while Professors Oldenberg and Rhys Davids, Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIII, p. 201, take it to mean in the Mahāvagga “money-changing”, because Buddhaghoṣa says in the commentary that "he who learns the *rūpa-sutta* must turn over and over many *kārṣāpaṇas* and look at them". The rendering "money-changing", though not far from the truth, is a little too specific. For it is not probable that a royal prince would qualify himself to become a banker. But, the curriculum of the so-called indigenous schools of the present day includes a branch of elementary learning, which may be called *rūpa* "forms" and to which Buddhaghoṣa's explanation may also refer.¹ After the children have mastered the art of writing and the most elementary arithmetical operations, addition, subtraction and particularly the *āṅk* or complicated multiplication tables, they are instructed in the practical application of arithmetic [14] to simple commercial and agricultural affairs. They learn, how many Ḍāms, Korīs, Pāisās, Pāulās and so forth go to the Rupee, the rules for calculating interest and wages as well as the simplest rules of mensuration.² This commercial and agricultural arithmetic is no doubt what is meant by *rūpa* and it may be that in ancient times, when coins were rare, specimens were placed before the pupils, which they had to handle and look at, in order to learn their form, weight and marks. As far as I am aware, this is not done in our days.³

c5.58

¹ My statements regarding the indigenous schools are based on what I have seen in Western, Northern and Central India. The Rev. J. Long's edition of Adam's Reports on Vernacular Education, pp. 19 ff. and 98 ff. furnishes confirmatory statements. See also Captain Harkness' article on the schools in Southern India, Jour. Roy. As. Soc., vol. I, p. 15 f., Mr. Gover's on the Dyal schools of Madras, Indian Antiquary, vol. II, p. 52 ff., and Mr. Raghunāthjī's on the Marāṭhī schools, Indian Antiquary, vol. VIII, p. 246 ff.

c5.59

² What is taught in this way in the indigenous schools of Gujarāt has been collected by Rao Saheb Bhogilāl Prāṇvallabh and published by the Bombay Educational Department under the title *Deśi Hisāb*, "Native Arithmetic", Pts. I and II.

c5.60

³ According to Major Temple the Burmese market-girls were actually taught in this way within the last thirty years, Indian Antiquary, vol. XXIV, p. 247, Notes.

c5.61

With respect to the instruction in writing, there is, as stated above, something more in the beginning of the Kaṭāhaka Jātaka. "When the son of the Sheth, the story says, learnt writing, the slave (Kaṭāhaka) too went with him carrying his board and (*thus*) learnt writing.” The sentence indicates, that the Sheth’s son did not receive instruction at home, but went to a master, who presumably kept a school. The mention of the “board” (*phalaka*) is very interesting. It agrees with the narrative of the Northern Buddhist Lalitavistara, according to which young Siddhārtha, the future Buddha, on going to the school of the Brahman Viśvāmitra, brought with him “a golden pencil and a tablet of red sandal wood”.¹ And the actualities in the indigenous schools of Western, Northern, Central and Eastern India² furnish the necessary commentary on the two passages. Nearly everywhere the board or wooden tablet is still in use for the first instruction in writing, and it is either covered with sand in which the letters are drawn with a small stick, or it is varnished and the letters are drawn with a stick, smeared with a solution of white chalk instead of ink.³ It is [15] evident that the Lalitavistara and the Jātaka refer to the method of instruction, which is still followed, and the information, conveyed by the latter and Mahāvagga I. 49, makes it probable that elementary schools existed at the period, when the Buddhist canon was composed, and that their curriculum was about the same as that of the indigenous Pāṭhśālās, Lehsaḍs, Niśāḷs (*i. e.* \*Lihśālās) and Tolls of modern India.

c5.62

¹ Professor Terrien de la Couperie, Babylonian and Or. Record, vol. I, p. 59, states that these words are found in the older Chinese translation, Pu yao king, dated 308 A. D. The legend possibly goes back to the beginning of our era.

c5.63

² Regarding Bengal and Behar, see the passages from Adam’s Report quoted above.

c5.64

³ In Gujarāt the latter method is the more common one, and a vessel, filled with a solution of chalk usually belongs to the paraphernalia of the schoolboys. But I have likewise seen the sanded board, on which the grains are made to adhere slightly by gum arabic. Very poor boys simply scattered dust on their boards and wrote in that, or if they had no boards, they brought brass kettles or pans and wrote on these with chalk. This happened even in the Government schools, where more usually slates and chalk-solution were used by the beginners or Āṁk-vālās, as the school-phrase is. Bērūnī, India, vol. I, p. 182 (Sachau), writing in A. D. 1030, mentions the use of black tablets in the schools, on which the children wrote with a white material.

c5.65

In the portions of the Nikāyas, which I have read, I have met with fewer references to writing. But they are not entirely wanting. Thus the Brahmajāla Sutta 14 and the Sāmaññaphala 49, mention a game, called *akkharikā*,¹ which according to Buddhaghoṣa means “reading letters in the air or in the vault of the sky”, see also Childers, Pali Dict. s. v. *piṭṭhī*.

c5.66

¹ Mentioned also in the Cullavagga I, 13. 2 and elsewhere.

c5.67

As regards the question to which exact period the testimony of the Pali Canon may refer, the answer, I think, must be, “to the fifth and possibly to the sixth century B. C.” In the introduction to the Vinayapiṭaka Professor Oldenberg has shown that there are good reasons for assuming the composition of the Mahāvagga, Pācittiya and Pārājika sections to precede the Council of Vesālī (ca. 380 B. C.) and to fall even somewhat earlier than the year 400 B. C.² While it will be sufficient to refer to his discussion on the Vinaya and to Professor M. Müller’s review of the question in the introduction to the Dhammapada, Sacred Books of the East, vol. X, p. XXIX ff., the case of the Jātakas requires a fuller consideration.

c5.68

² Vinayapiṭaka, vol. I, p. XXXIV—XXXVIII.

c5.69

It is a well known fact that the sculptures on the Sānchi and Bharahut or Bharaut Stūpas contain representations of various Jātakas. On the Sānchi Stūpa the Sāma Jātaka has been identified³ and others, like the Mahākapi Jātaka, may be recognised even on the Plates in Dr. Fergusson’s Tree and Serpent [16] Worship. On the Bharahut Stūpa twenty-one sculptured scenes, to which the titles are mostly added, have been found to correspond with Birth Stories in Professor Fausböll’s printed edition, and Dr. E. Hultzsch has shown that even a Pāda of a verse, used as a title, agrees with the printed text.⁴ Among them there are also two, the Rurumiga and the Asadisa, which have been quoted above as witnesses for the use of writing. Both the Stūpas date from the third century B. C., some additions only belonging to the second century. The age of the Sānchi Stūpa is proved by a fragment of an Aśoka Edict, which agrees in part with the so-called Kosambī Edict on the Allahabad Pillar, and by the fact that the characters of more than nine tenth of its nearly four hundred inscriptions fully agree with those of the Aśoka Edicts, while about two score show slightly more advanced forms.¹ Similarly, nearly all the hundred and fifty three published inscriptions of the Bharahut Stūpa are written in the alphabet of the Edicts, and it is chiefly Dhanabhūti's inscription on the gateway-pillar dated "in the reign of the Śuṅgas", which is incised in more modern letters. The pieces with the later characters are, of course, additions or repairs, made [17] after the completion of the original structure.² Under these circumstances it is very probable that in the third century B. C. our collection of the Jātakas formed part of the Buddhist Canon, which, as the Bairat Edict, addressed to the Māgadha Saṅgha, and various inscriptions on the Stūpas indicate, was then fully settled. Both on the Sānchi and Bharahut Stūpas we read of monks who had the title *pacanekāyika* (*pāñcanai-* *kāyika*)¹ i. e. 'teacher of the five Nikāyas', and in Bharahut appears also a *peṭaki* i. e. 'a person who knew or taught the Piṭaka or Piṭakas', about whose designation more will be said below.

c5.70

³ Jour. Roy. As. Soc. 1894, p. 211 ff.

c5.71

⁴ Indian Antiquary, vol. XXI, p. 225 f., where Dr. Hultzsch has reprinted his excellent edition of the inscriptions together with a synopsis of the stories hitherto identified and other very valuable remarks. The fact that the titles of the stories frequently differ, the Pali text naming the story after one chief actor or incident and the inscription after another, has been discussed by Professor Rhys Davids in the Introduction to his Buddhist Birthstories p. LX ff. And he has shown that it in no way goes against the assumption that the canonical collection existed at the time when the sculptures were made, because vacillations with respect to the titles occur likewise in the Pāli collection. I would add that variations in titles are also found in Brahminical literature. Thus Bāṇa calls the Bhagavadgītā, Anantagītā. Kumārila uses the title Āścarya Parvan for the Putradarśana Parvan of the MSS. of the Mahābhārata, and there are Vedic hymns with two or three names. Such a vacillation comes quite natural to a Hindu, who is accustomed to substitute endless synonyms for technical terms and names of plants animals etc., and even changes portions of personal names, saying Vikramāditya, Vikramārka or Vikramāṅka, though he means the same individual. The discrepancies between the Pali stories and the representations in Bharahut, which Prof. Minayeff believed to have discovered (Recherches I, 140 ff.), are, I think, merely such as may be expected to be found between all narratives and their illustrations by sculptures.

c5.72

¹ See my articles on the Sānchi Stūpa inscriptions in the Epigraphia Indica, vol. II, p. 87 ff. and p. 366 ff., which latter is accompanied by two plates, giving specimens of inscriptions in the old and the more advanced characters.

c5.73

² See the Plate in vol. XL of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, and Indian Antiquary, vol. XIV, p. 139. The inscription of Dhanabhūti on the gateway-pillar belongs in my opinion to the middle of the second century B. C.

c5.74

The evidence of the relievos on the Stūpas furnishes a lower date for the Jātakas, later than which their use for the edification of the Buddhist laymen cannot be put. But there are other circumstances connected with them, which make it very probable, that the picture of the national life of [18]

c5.75

the Jour. Roy. As. Soc. of 1893, p. 301 ff., and I can only say that a closer study of the Jātakas had led me to the same conclusion before the publication of Dr. von Oldenburg's paper. Moreover, the detailed researches of Professor Leumann and of Dr. R. G. Bhāṇḍārkar have yielded exactly the same results, see the Wiener Zeitschrift für d. Kunde d. Morg. Vol. V, p. 111 ff., the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morg. Gesellschaft Vol. XLVIII, p. 65 ff. and the Transactions of the IX th Int. Or. Congress, 1892, Vol. I, p. 422 ff.

c5.76

This discovery makes the question regarding the exact date, at which the loan may have been effected, a matter of minor importance. The chief point for consideration is, if in effecting the loan the Buddhist monks altered much and especially, if the description of Indian life which the Jātakas contain, has been made to agree with that of the times when Buddhism had become a power in India. The answer can only be, that there are remarkably few traces of Buddhism in these stories and that they do not describe the condition of India in the third or fourth century B. C., but an older one. Peculiarly Buddhistic are only the introduction of the future Buddha into most tales, who invariably is identified with the wisest and best of the actors, occasional spiteful remarks against the Vedic animal sacrifices and against the deified national heroes, whom the orthodox sects worshipped, and intentional perversions of the legends told of them. The doctrine of the power of the Karman, the moral maxims and the few religious observances such as the sanctification of the Uposatha or Parvan days, which the stories inculcate, are common to the Buddhists and to all other Indian religions, whether orthodox or heterodox. [19] With respect to these there was not much to change, except perhaps some of the technical expressions.

c5.77

On the other hand the descriptions of the political, religious and social condition of the people clearly refer to the ancient time before the rise of the great Eastern dynasties of the Nandas and the Mauryas, when Pāṭaliputra had become the capital of India. The Jātakas mention neither the one nor the other, and they know nothing of great empires which comprised the whole or large parts of India. The number of the kingdoms, whose rulers play a part in the stories, is very considerable. The majority of the names, such as Madra, the two Pañcālas, Kosala, Videha, Kāśi, and Vidarbha agrees with those mentioned in the Vedic literature, while a few others, like Kaliṅga and Assaka *i. e.* Aśmaka or Aśvaka, occur in Brahminical literature first in the Epics and in Pāṇini's Sūtras. The characteristic names of the Andhras, the Pāṇḍyas and Keralas are not mentioned.

c5.78

Though a political centre was wanting, frequent statements regarding the instruction of the young Brahmans and nobles show that there was an intellectual centre and that it lay in Takkasilā, the capital of distant Gandhāra. Takkasilā is according to the Jātakas the town, where the youth of the two highest classes received instruction in the three Vedas and the twelve or eighteen branches of learning (*sippa* or *vijjāṭhāna*). This agrees with some statements in other parts of the Canon, where, as in the Vinayapiṭaka, the famous physician Jīvaka Komārabhacca is represented as having studied medicine in Takkasilā. And it is very credible that Gandhāra, the native country of Pāṇini, was a stronghold of Brahminical learning certainly in the fourth and fifth centuries B. C., and perhaps even earlier.

c5.79

The statements regarding the religious condition of India point to an equally early period. Just as the three Vedas are the basis of the higher instruction, so the prevalent religion is that of the Path of Works with its ceremonies and sacrifices, among which several like the Vācapeyya (*vājapeya*) and the Rājasūya are specially and repeatedly mentioned. Side by side with these appear popular festivals, celebrated, when the Nakṣatra had been proclaimed, with general merry-makings and copious libations of Surā, as well as the worship of demons and trees, [20] all of which go back to the earliest times. Nor are the hermits in the woods and the wandering ascetics unknown. Most of the heroes take the *isipabbajjā*, *i. e.*, renounce the world according to the rule of the Ṛṣis, and live with their sacred fires in the hill-forests, whence they descend occasionally in order to procure salt and pungent condiments (*loṇambilasevanattha*). The wandering ascetics (*tāpasa*) appear to belong to different orders, as various distinctive marks are mentioned. But only those of one division, the Ājīvikas, are actually named, among whom the future Buddha himself was once born in a former Kalpa. These are, as Professor Kern has first pointed out, the ancient Vaiṣṇava devotees of Nārāyaṇa and particularly the Paramahaṁsas, who according to the lately recovered Vaikhānasa Dharmasūtra actually went naked and swallowed cowdung, as the Buddhists allege of these dangerous rivals.

c5.80

The state of civilisation, described in the Jātakas, is in various respects primitive, and particularly noteworthy is the prevalence of wood architecture, which on the evidence of the oldest sculptures had almost disappeared in the third century B. C. The Jātakas even describe the palaces of kings as usually constructed of wood. Many other details might be added. But the facts given are sufficient for our purpose. They make it at least probable that the mention of writing as common in daily life is not an addition, made by the Buddhists in later times, but occurred in the old stories which they appropriated. And it ought to be remembered, that in the Puṇṇanadī and Asadisa Jātakas writing is not merely an ornamental accessory, but a most essential point, without which the stories would have no meaning, and that the Asadisa Jātaka is found on the Stūpa of Bharahut.

c5.81

An additional argument for the antiquity of the writing, mentioned in the books of the Pali Canon, is furnished by the technical terms which they employ. They exclusively use for writing, writers and letters words which mean "to cut", *chind*, "to scratch" *likh*, "the scratcher" *lekhaka*, "scratching" or "scratches", *lekha*, and "the indelible" *akkhara*. On the other hand the word *lipi*, which Pāṇini, circiter 350 B. C.,¹ has in the compounds *lipikara* and *libikara*, "writer", is not found in the Buddhist canonical works known to me, nor is there in Childers' Dictionary any quotation for it from the Canon. For *lipi* two explanations have been proposed. According to the older opinion it is derived from *lip* ‘to smear’, like *kṛṣi* ‘agriculture’ from *kṛṣ* to plough’, and like a number of other substantives formed by the feminine affix *i*. According to others,¹ it is a corruption of the Old Persian *dipi* ‘writing’, which corruption was favoured by a fancied connexion with the verb *lip*. Though *lipi* might be a perfectly regular derivative from *lip*, and might appropriately have been used to denote ‘letters’ and ‘the alphabet’ on the introduction of writing with ink, the derivation becomes doubtful through the fact that the verb *limpati* is not used in the sense of ‘he writes’. And the impressions of the Shāhbāzgarhī version of Aśoka’s Edicts have furnished a strong argument for the adherents of the second view. For they show that in the Gandhāra dialect *lipi* is represented by *dipi* and that the verbs *dipati* ‘he writes’

c5.82

¹ I can only adhere to the traditional date of the great grammarian, which, as we know now, was contained in the ancient Bṛhatkathā, since both Kṣemendra's and Somadeva's Sanskrit translations contain the story of Pāṇini, the pupil of Upavarṣa, who flourished during the reign of Yogananda, the predecessor of Candragupta, Indian Antiquary, vol. I, p. 305. — Pāṇini's Dhātupāṭha gives for the verb *likh* the meaning *akṣaravinyāsa* 'arranging letters' or 'syllables' and thus furnishes, as Geheimrath von Böhtlingk points out to me, another proof for the prevalence of writing in the fourth cent. B. C.

c5.83

The loan theory agrees also well with the occurrence of the word in the Sūtras of Pāṇini, who was a native of Sālātūrā, the modern village of Lahul, close to Ohind and west of the Indus, and with its absence from the ancient Buddhist canonical works, which were composed in Eastern India and before 400 B. C.

c5.84

Some further valuable information regarding writing and especially regarding the ancient alphabets, is furnished by the works of the Northern Buddhists, by the Jaina scriptures and by some metrical Smṛtis. In the account of prince Siddhārtha’s first visit to the writing-school, extracted by Professor Terrien de la Couperie from the Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara of 308 A. D. (see above p. 1

c5.85

The enumeration of the sixty-four alphabets¹ has gained a greater interest by the discovery of a similar, apparently independent list in the Jaina Āgamas. Professor Weber's analysis of the latter shows,² that they too allege the early existence of a larger number of scripts and that some of the names agree literally, or at least in meaning, with those given by the Buddhists. Both the Jainas and the Buddhists agree in allotting the first place, to "Brahman's writing", the *Brāhmī lipi* or *Bambhī livī*, indicating thereby the pre-eminence of the characters, running from the left to the right, which are used in the majority of Aśoka's Edicts. Both name also the alphabet written from the right to the left, which in the Jaina Prakrit is called *Kharoṭṭhī* instead of *Kharoṣṭhī*. Its position in the two lists somewhat differs, as the Buddhists give it the second place and the Jainas only the fourth. Further, both lists include the *Puṣkarasārī* (No. 3) or *Pukkharasāriya* (No. 5) and the *Drāviḍa* (No. 12) or *Ḍāmila* (No. 17) characters. The mention of the last alphabet has become important since the discovery of an ancient partly independent variant of the Brāhmī lipi at Bhaṭṭiprolu in the Kistna districts of the Madras Presidency. And it is not improbable that this alphabet is meant by "the writing of the Dravidian country"³. The mention of the *Puṣkarasārī* or *Pukkharasāriyā lipi*, too, possesses some interest, as its name is evidently derived from the patronymic *Pauṣkarasādi* or *Puṣkarasādi*, which appears in Brahminical works on grammar and law as the designation of one, or perhaps of several famous teachers. It is certainly a Brahminical name and indicates that a scion of the race of Puṣkarasad invented some particular alphabet or introduced modifications [24] in an existing one. The name, therefore, furnishes the proof that in early times Brahmans directed their attention to the art of writing, for which view other arguments will be adduced further on. The other names, which like the *Gandharva* or *Gandhavva* agree fully, or like the *nāgalipi* “the writing of the snake-deities” and the *Bhogāvaiyā*, “the writing of Bhogāvatī, the residence of the Nāgas”, in their general meaning, are perhaps in part fanciful and, at least for the present, not particularly instructive.

c5.86

¹ See Lalitavistara, p. 143 f. Calc. ed.

c5.87

² Indische Studien, vol. XVI, pp. 280, 399 ff. The list occurs twice, in the Samavāyāṅga and the Paṇṇāvanā Sūtras. There is a third list of alphabets with about 30 mostly very corrupt names in the Mahâvastu, I, p. 135 (Senart), which has been omitted intentionally, as its exact contents cannot be made out with certainty.

c5.88

³ I may state here that in my opinion Dr. Burnell's contention for the antiquity or the Vaṭṭeḷuttu or Pāṇḍya-Cera alphabet is erroneous; see the Grundriss der Indo-Ar. Phil. und Alt., I, 11, § 32.

c5.89

The independence of the Jaina list from that of the Lalitavistara is proved by various discrepancies. First, it is much shorter and includes only eighteen varieties, and among them occurs the *Javaṇāliyā* or according to the printed edition of the Paṇṇāvanā Sūtra, the *Javaṇāniyā*, which corresponds to Pāṇini’s term *Yavanānī*,¹ or, as Kātyāyana’s Vārttika states, “the writing of the Yavanas”. Secondly, the Jainas use the term Bambhī livī in a double sense, not only for a particular variety of writing, but also for every kind of writing. The texts are explicit on this point and say,² *Bambhhīe ṇaṁ livīe aṭṭhārasavihalikkhavihāṇe paṇṇatte | taṁ bambhī* etc. “An eighteenfold order of scripts is taught for the Brāhma writing, viz. the Brāhma” etc. This apparently senseless assertion finds its explanation through passages of the metrical Smṛtis of Nārada and Bṛhaspati, as well as through Brahminical sculptures and pictures of Brahman. The two lawbooks state that “the Creator (Brahman) created writing in order to keep the affairs of the world in their proper course” or “in order to remove doubts regarding legal transactions”.³ On the sculptures in the Bā- [25] dāmī caves,¹ which date from the end of the sixth century A. D., the same idea is expressed by representing Brahman with strips of palmleaves in his right hand, for which modern pictures of the deity substitute an inscribed piece of paper.² It thus appears that there were two legends which the Jainas have combined, one which ascribed to Brahman the invention of all writing and another which restricted his activity to one particular alphabet, that which was the commonest and most generally used. Both myths no doubt were current side by side, and express with a slight variation the belief that writing is a national Indian invention.

First 89 of 131 passages. Read on

Linked texts (28)