On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.s1.35

c7.s1.35

¹ I enumerate the occurrences so fully, because, when the sign first turned up in Kālsī, it was considered to have been borrowed from the Kharoṣṭhī, which has the remotely similar lingual *ṣa* [Figure:]. I will add that in Bhaṭṭiprolu where we have *śamaṇudeśānaṃ i. e. śramaṇoddeśyānām*, in the Ghasundi inscription where we have *Parāśarīputa* and *śilā*, and in Pabhosa which offers *Śonakāyana* i. e. *Śaunakāyana*, this sign appears only in words which have *śa* in Sanskrit, while in the Edicts it occurs mostly and very irregularly in words, where the Sanskrit has *sa* or *ṣa*. The confusion is owing to the negligent pronunciation and writing of the clerk, who made the copy. His dialect probably contained two sibilants, the dental and the palatal, and his alphabet had three, the dental, the palatal and the lingual. His negligence in pronunciation made him pronounce *sa* for *śa* and vice versa, and his negligence in writing made him use *sa* and *śa* indiscriminately. As stated above, papers written in our times by half-educated clerks and others show exactly the same confusion and for the same reasons. They pronounce *e. g.* both *sac* and *śac* (*satyam*) and they write indiscriminately सच, शच and षच.