On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c6.29

c6.29

⁷ The stunted *ta* is very frequent in Kālsī and occurs occasionally also in other versions. The triangular *va* with the very short vertical is found once in a correction in Kālsī, Edict XIII, 2, l. 13. The forms in line *B* have been taken from the Kuṣana inscriptions. Some instances of *pa*, *pha* and *sa* with very short verticals occur likewise already in the Edicts. where writing is taught according to the Bārākhaḍī, described above, which contains no ligatures and more sibilants than the Vernaculars possess, and where composition received little or no attention, being at the best confined to the copying of a few forms for letters. Another cause was the want of a settled system for the minutiae of vernacular grammar, both in writing and in speech (compare my remarks, Ep. Ind., Vol. III, p. 136) all efforts in this direction being of quite recent date. A third cause is, I fear, the deeply rooted tendency of all Hindus to inaccuracy in small matters. Now the Aśoka Edicts are official papers, written by his *lipikaras* or clerks. As there is no reason for assuming that they had received a better education than the men in the modern offices of British and native India, and that the Vernaculars of the third century B. C. had been polished and perfected by grammarians, it seems difficult to ascribe the defects in their spelling to other causes than those which produce the same imperfections in the office work of the modern Karkuns. The probability that the causes are the same increases, if it is remembered, that even the Sanskrit landgrants, issued from the secretariats of later kings, show the same mistakes, sometimes in a very high degree. Thus the Valabhī grant, published in the Indian Antiquary, Vol. VII, p. 68 f., has no long *ī*, very few long *ū*, invariably *dha* for *ddha* and almost regularly *śa* for *ṣa*.