On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c6.49

c6.49

¹ M. Halévy, op. cit., p. 250 ff. and particularly p. 267, tries to establish a still later date for the elaboration of the Kharoṣṭhī. He seeks the prototypes of its characters in the Aramaic alphabet of the fourth century B. C. He believes that they were developed in Ariana not earlier than 330 B. C. after the appointment of Macedonian Satraps by Alexander, who, as he thinks, may have fostered the use of the already prevalent Aramaic writing and thereby may have induced their subjects to adapt it to their special wants. The obvious weakness of M. Halévy's arguments prevents my accepting his theory, which would be more favourable for my point. It is a matter of course that I am likewise unable to agree with M. Halévy's theory (op. cit., p. 280—286 and Plate II, A) according to which the Brāhmī lipi has borrowed from the Kharoṣṭhī six radical signs, *śa*, *jha*, *ḍa*, *ña*, *u* and *ra*, the Anunāsika, the system of vowel-notation, and the numeral signs 4—9. The reasons, why I do not consider the six Mātṛkās and the vowel-notation of the Brāhma alphabet as loans from the Kharoṣṭhī, will become apparent in the next section of this Essay. With respect to the Anunāsika, I must point out that the sign, 󰁛, which M. Halévy derives from the Kharoṣṭhī *ma* 󰁜 of the Indo-Grecian coins, appears in no Indian document written in India before 1200 A. D., while the Kharoṣṭhī went out of use about 200 A. D. As regards the assertion that the Brāhma numeral signs for 4—9 are the initial Kharoṣṭhī letters for the words *catur*, *pañcan*, *ṣaṭ* (old Prakrit, *sa*, *chha* or *saḍ*), *saptan* (Prakrit *satta*), *aṣṭan* (old Prakrit *asta*, *aṭṭha*) and *navan* (old Prakrit *nava*), which is also put forward by Dr. Taylor (The Alphabet, II, p. 266), it is unfortunate that in four cases the facts are absolutely against it. The Kharoṣṭhī *cha* 󰁝 no doubt looks like the Kṣatrapa sign for four. But the Indian words for four, all begin with the unaspirated *ca*. Again, the Aśoka signs for six (see below plate III) have on resemblance to the Kharoṣṭhī *sa* [Figure:]. Further the Kṣatrapa sign for seven [Figure:] or Gupta [Figure:] cannot be the Kharoṣṭhī palatal *śa* [Figure:], because the word for seven begins in all Indian dialects with a dental *sa*. Again, the Kṣatrapa and Andhra [Figure:] cannot represent the Kharoṣṭhī *Aś*, because no such ligature is ever formed in any Indian writing. Besides, if it had been formed, it would be wrong. The second part ought to be the lingual *ṣa* [Figure:], because the word is *aṣṭan* not *aśtan*. Finally, the nought of the ninth and later centuries O cannot be derived from a sign for 10 expressed by a circle, because no such figure exists, nor from the entirely dissimilar Kharoṣṭhī *da* [Figure:]. The Hindus call the nought explicitly *śūnyabindu* “the dot marking a blank”, and about A. D. 500 they marked it by a simple dot, which latter is commonly used in inscriptions and MSS in order to mark a blank (see the Grundriss, I, 11, pp. 78 and 86), and which was later converted into a small circle.