On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c6.36

c6.36

On the coin, plate II, 17, the Brāhma legend *Vaṭasvaka* corresponds to Sanskrit *Vaṭāśvakāḥ* and probably means "the Vaṭa-Aśvakas" or "the Aśvakas of the Vaṭa or 'fig-tree' division". It is well known that there was an Aśvaka tribe in Northwestern India, whom the Greeks call Assakenoi and state (Arrian, Indica, I. 1) to have inhabited the country west of the Indus as far as the Kophen. It may further be mentioned that some old Indian tribes, like the Yaudheyas² were actually divided into sections or *gaṇas*, as well as that, as the case of the Audumbaras shows, tribes were occasionally named after trees. With this explanation the coin appears to have been issued by one of the subdivisions of a tribe, which occupied just those districts, from which so many Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions come, and a Brāhma inscription on a tribal coin would certainly indicate that the alphabet was in popular use.