On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.95

c5.95

These points, to which the differences in half a dozen names of alphabets must be added, show very clearly that the Jaina list has not been copied from that of the Buddhists, but gives expression to an independent tradition, which in all probability is considerably older than that of the Buddhists. The greater antiquity of the Jaina list is apparent from its more reasonable number of alphabets, which, however, is also a purely conventional one³ and need not be taken to mean more than "a large number". It is also probable, because the Aṅga and the Upāṅga, in which it occurs, certainly are much older than the third century A. D., the time for which the existence of the Buddhist list is absolutely certain. In my opinion we have, since the discoveries in the Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā at Mathurā, very good reasons for believing the Śvetāmbara tradition which places the first collection of the Aṅgas in the reign of the Maurya Candragupta or about 300 B. C.⁴ And, though the Aṅgas evidently have undergone changes between that time and their final redaction by Devarddhi in the fifth century A. D., it seems to me probable that the list of the alphabets belongs to the original contents of the Samavāyāṅga, because it has been embodied also in the Paṇṇāvaṇā Sūtra, the traditional date of which is 358 after Vīra or 168 B. C. Nor is the existence of such [26] a traditional list at the beginning of the Maurya period *a priori* incredible. Pāṇini's rule regarding the formation of *Yavanānī* "the writing of the Yavanas" very probably indicates, as has already been remarked by others, that in his time, *i. e.*, about 350 B. C., more alphabets than one were known,¹ and for the third century B. C. the contemporaneous use of three alphabets, the ordinary Brāhmī *lipi*, the Kharoṣṭhī and the Bhaṭṭiprolu variety of the Brāhma alphabet is certain. The bearing of the early existence of such a list of alphabets and of the myth, ascribing their invention to Brahman, on the question of the antiquity of writing in India, is obvious. The introduction of writing cannot have taken place about 400 B. C., but must be earlier at least by some centuries.