On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.98

c5.98

¹ As stated above, I adhere to the tradition, which asserts that Pāṇini was the pupil of Upavarṣa and lived during the reign of the last Nanda, the predecessor of the Maurya Candragupta. This tradition gives a reasonable date and probably goes back itself to the beginning of our era, since, according to the concurrent testimony of Kṣemendra and Somadeva, it occurred in Guṇāḍhya's Bṛhatkathā. I agree with Dr. Burnell (El. S. Ind. Pal.², p. 6) and Professor A. Ludwig, (see his paper on "Yavanānī" quoted above) that *yavanānī* means "the writing of the Greeks". But I believe with Prof. Ludwig that Pāṇini's acquaintance with the existence of the Greek alphabet is by no means irreconcilable with his traditional date. Irrespective of the general reasons, adduced by Professor Ludwig, it seems to me not wonderful that an author, whose native country had been explored in 509 B. C. by Skylax and whose countrymen, the Gandhāras, had furnished a contingent for Xerxes' invasion of Greece should mention the old Oriental name of the Greeks and should be acquainted with their writing (see also Professor Weber, Monatsberichte Berl. Akad. 1871, p. 616). And there is, as Mr. Rapson points out to me, even positive proof for such an acquaintance, as Athenian *drakhmes* with the inscription ΑΘΕ struck before the end of the reign of Alexander, possibly even before 350 B. C., have been found in India as well as *Indian imitations* of such coins, see B. V. Head, Cat. Greek. Coins: Attica, p. XXXIf., pp. 25—27. To me it seems absolutely impossible to make the mere occurrence of the word Yavana in Sanskrit works a mark, which proves that they must have been written after the invasion of Alexander.