On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c6.45

c6.45

From the second and first centuries B. C. we have chiefly legends on coins, which were struck in the Panjab or in non-Indian countries further west. The Indo-Grecian kings generally use Kharoṣṭhī letters, but Agathokles and Pantaleon employ also Brāhma characters, showing thereby that this alphabet likewise continued to be used in the Northwest, side by side with the Kharoṣṭhī. The same fact is proved by the double legends in Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhma letters on Sir A. Cunningham's Audumbara and Kuninda coins, op. cit. pl. IV² and V, 1—6, which come from the same districts and probably belong to the same time. Further east in Kosambī, Ayodhyā (op. cit., pl. V, 7—18 and IX) and Pancāla (pl. VII) as well as further south in Ujjain (pl. X) none but Brāhma letters occur. And it is curious that even the Yaudheyas (pl. VI), who were settled on the lower Satledge, use only the latter characters. A few single letters on the gateway of the Bharahut Stūpa, among which there is a *sa* of the second century, (Cunningham, the Stūpa of Bharahut, pl. VIII), are probably marks of northern masons, who erected this additional portion of the monument for Dhanabhūti.