On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c6.1

c6.1

If we now turn to the consideration of the oldest Indian inscriptions, it is not difficult to show that the palaeographic facts fully confirm the results, which the preceding examination of the ancient literature has yielded. They likewise show that writing, and especially the Brāhmī lipi, had had a long history in India, before king Piyadasi-Aśoka caused his Edicts to be incised in the various provinces of his large empire. In addition they permit us to recognise that the Brāhmī lipi is the real old Indian alphabet, which was popularly used in the third century B. C. all over India, and that it was fully developed [34] before the introduction of the Kharoṣṭhī, whence we may infer that it is the writing which the Buddhist canonical works mention so frequently.