On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.101

c5.101

If the four vowels and *ḷa* are deducted, only 46 radical signs remain. Nevertheless Abhayadeva's explanation undoubtedly contains a mistake. It is not the consonant *ḷa* but the group *kṣa*, which ought to be deducted. For *ḷa* is one of the ancient radical signs and occurs on the Sānchi Stūpa as well as in the Bhaṭṭiprolu alphabet. *Kṣa*, on the other hand, can have been reckoned as a radical sign only from the time, when *ka* was written with a loop or triangle on the left . It was only then that the origin of *kṣa* , in wich *ka* retained its ancient dagger-shape, was obscured and that the still prevalent erroneous conception of the indigenous schoolmasters could arise, who persistently declare *kṣa* to be a *mātṛkā*. The period, when the *ka* with a loop came into general use probably falls not earlier than between 400 and 500 A. D. In the inscriptions of the nail-headed and flat-topped (Nāgarī) types, it is only traceable since the second half of the sixth century. But in the [28] ian schools and by the classes without a scientific Brahminical education. According to the printed Lalitavistara, p. 145 f., prince Siddhārtha explained on entering the writing-school to his master the hidden meaning of the radical signs of the alphabet which he was to learn.¹ The vowels, which he is said to have enumerated, are only twelve, viz:—*a*, *ā*, *i*, *ī*, *u*, *ū*, *e*, *ai*, *o*, *au*, *aṃ*, *aḥ*. These twelve vowels alone occur in the alphabet, taught in the indigenous Indian schools, where they are combined with the consonants and form the so-called *Bārākhaḍī* or *Bārasakhaḍī*,² which the children on beginning their school-course are made to copy incessantly, until by its means they have learned both elementary reading and writing. The *Bārākhaḍī*, in Sanskrit *dvādaśākṣarī*, “a collection or aggregate of twelve syllables (for each consonant)”, is arranged as follows³:—