On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.19

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.