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On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.s3: C. The Medial Vowels

On the Origin of the Indian Brāhma Alphabet c7.s3

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C. The Medial Vowels

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Hitherto two systems for the notation of the medial vowels have become known, that of the Edicts and all the later Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions and that of Bhaṭṭiprolu. The first, which is by far the older one, shows clearly the influence of the grammarians and their ingenuity. As the vowel, expressed in the beginning of words by the representative of the Semitic *Aleph*, occurs in Sanskrit nearly as frequently as all the other vowels taken together,¹ it was not expressed by any sign, but considered to be inherent in all signs for consonants. This device fully agrees with the system of nearly all the phonetic and grammatical treatises, which, as Professor Max Müller has shown so clearly, do not refer to written letters but only to sounds.² They almost invariably speak of the *kakāra*, *gakāra* [75] and so forth. The commentators no doubt are right, when they assert, that the vowel has been added in order to make the pronunciation of the consonants possible, and the vowel *a* was selected for this purpose on account of the frequency of its occurrence. It seems impossible to assume that there is no connexion between the two facts, and, as the grammarians base their theories on spoken words not on written texts, I think that they are the men who also in this case influenced the formation of the Brāhma alphabet.

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¹ See Professor Whitney's calculations in his Sanskrit Grammar, p. 73 (second edition).

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² History Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 507 ff. This assertion has been hotly contested by Professor Goldstücker in his Introduction to the Mānava Kalpa Sūtra, p. 13 ff. But Professor Kielhorn, who has studied the Vyākaraṇa during so many years, informs me that he does not know of a single passage even in the Bhāṣya, which indicates with certainty, that a written text of Pāṇini's grammar is referred to, or where the technical terms of the grammarians and their theoretical speculations refer to written signs; see also his remarks in Gurupūjākaumudī p. 29 ff. It seems, therefore, to be a fact that the grammatical and phonetic researches were begun either before the introduction of writing or independently of writing, and that even those ancient authors, who like Pāṇini, mention alphabets and clerks, continued to work on in the old manner. I must, however, add that Geheimrath von Böhtlingk dissents and believes that the phrase *yathānyāsam* in the Mahābhāṣya (e. g. I, 22, l. 3) points to a written text.

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As regards the other vowels, medial *ā* is expressed by placing to the right of the consonant the same short horizontal stroke,³ used for the differentiation of the initial *Ā* from *A*, apparently because the other portion, the short *a*, is already contained in the consonant. The remaining ones are expressed by the signs for the initial vowels or by modifications thereof, placed above or below the consonants. A very clear case is that of the medial *o* in the syllable *ko*,¹ given in two forms under No 6, Col. VI, h—i. If the *k*, *i. e.* the portion of the sign below the second bar, is removed, there remains in the eighth sign a minute initial *o* of the type in Col. VI, f, and in the ninth one of the type in Col. VI, g. Now in the Jaugaḍa version of the Rock Edicts, where the initial *O* has the top bar to the right, the same is invariably the case with the medial *o*. It, therefore, would seem that the writer was perfectly aware of the connection of the two signs. But, in Aśoka's time this [76] feeling was dying out. For in Girnār, where the initial *O* with the top-bar to the left alone is used, the medial *o* is made in both ways, and in the second part of the Delhi Pillar Edict VII, 2, l. 2 we have once the cursive medial *o* in *nigohāni*, where both strokes are placed on the same level above the consonant.

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³ Originally the stroke, of course, stood on the left, and it is found in this position on the Eraṇ coin, where the letters run from the right to the left, see the Grundriss, Tafel II. 28. I.

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¹ Compare also the *go* [Figure:] in *mago*. Girnār, Ed. I, l. 11, where a distinct *O* stands above *ga*.

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Equally clear is the case of the medial *u*, which is the initial *U*, put below the consonant. This is distinctly recognisable in the sign *dhu* (No 6, Col. VI, b) which occurs repeatedly in the Kālsī version.² Cursively it assumes the form, given in Col. VI, c or of D, with the omission either of the vertical stroke or of the horizontal bar at the end. On the same cursive principle *ū*, which in *kū* etc. retains the shape of *Ū* (Grundriss, I, 11, p. 37), is expressed by two strokes, placed either horizontally at the side of the consonant (No 6, Col. VI, e) or below the consonant, where they frequently form an acute angle but are also placed parallel side by side. These facts seem to indicate that Aśoka's clerks had lost the remembrance of the origin of the signs for medial *u* and *ū*, and that they considered the old forms, which they occasionally used, merely as permissible variants without any special significance. In later inscriptions,³ however, reminiscences of the origin of the subscript *u* and *ū* are found. Thus in the ancient Śāradā characters of the Baijnāth Praśasti and elsewhere *pū* is expressed by पु.

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² *E. g.* in Kālsī, Edict III, l. 8 (twice).

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³ Compare also the Grundriss, *gu* in Taf. VII. 10. 20; *bhu* in Taf. VII. 30. XII; *śu* in Taf. VII. 36. XXI; and *bhū* in Taf. VII. 30. XX—XXI.

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As regards the medial *i*, the small angle to the left of the top of the consonant by which it is marked, seems to be the result of a connexion of the three dots of the initial vowel by means of two lines, see the *ki* No 16, Col. VI, d—e, lower row. As long as the Brāhma alphabet was written from the right to the left, the *i*-strokes, as well as all other vowel signs of course stood to the left of the consonant. In the Kālsī version, Ed. XIII, 2, l. 10, there are two signs, at the end of the words *anuvidhiyaṃti* and *anuvidhiyisaṃti*, where the vowel has this position. They look like *A*, because the vowel strokes have been added to the middle of the consonant. A better formed *ti* with the vowel on the left occurs in Allahābād, Ed. I (end), and a similar *hi* on the Sohgaurā copperplate, l. 4. The medial *ī* does not seem to be connected with the initial *Ī*, but to have been formed by the addition of the [77] straight stroke, denoting also in other cases the lengthening of vowels, which for convenience's sake in this case was made vertical. Cursively the angle of medial *i* is converted in Girnar into a shallow curve and medial *ī* is expressed by a curve bisected by a vertical stroke.

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The sign for medial *e*, a straight or slanting line to the left of the consonant, I take to be the remnant of a triangular initial *E*, the outlines of which have been indicated by dots in the *ke*, figured under No 16, Col. VI, a, upper row. I may add that in the Edicts forms like [Figure:] are occasionally used for *ge*, where the vowel sign seems to consist not of a line, but of a hook put on the top of the letter. Such forms are perhaps ancient survivals, dating from a time when the vowel was represented by an angle, to which the triangle probably was reduced in the first instance. The position of the *e*-stroke is abnormal, as it stands to the left of, or before, the letter, after which it is pronounced. The cause is no doubt, that, if it had been placed to the right, it would have been undistinguishable from medial long *ā*.

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In accordance with the form of the initial *AI* consisting of *e* and a horizontal bar to the left of the top, the medial *ai* is expressed by two bars to the left of the consonant, see the syllable *thai* from the Girnār version, given under No 16, Col. VI, c, upper row.

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The absence of a medial vowel between two consonants is expressed by the formation of a ligature, in which ordinarily the second consonant or its most essential portion is attached to the foot of the first. In the Girnār and Siddāpur versions however, the ligatures *ṣṭa*, *tpa*, *vya*¹ as well as those containing a *ra*, like *tra*, *pra* and *vra* show the inverse order and are spelt *ṭṣa*, *pta*, *yva*, *rta* and so forth, while all the others like *sta*, *mha* etc. are formed regularly. Moreover, in the words *brāmhaṇa* (Girnār IV, l. 2) and *drahyitavyaṃ* (Siddāpur, I, l. 9) the first vertical of *ba* and the two vertical strokes of *da* have been converted into wavy *ra*-lines. These irregularities are no [78] doubt due to an artistic feeling and the desire of the clerks to produce regular, shapely signs. The combinations of the consonants with medial vowels furnish analogies. Properly all the vowels ought to stand to the right of the foot of the consonants. If the majority is nevertheless placed at the top, that has been done merely for the sake of convenience. Later inscriptions also furnish a few isolated cases of an inversion of the order of the elements of ligatures. Thus the name of Caṣṭana's father is spelt on the coins *Ysamotika* instead of *Syamotika* and Harṣa's Banskhera Plate of A. D. 628/9 offers *vaṇṇra* for *varṇṇa*.

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¹ At least in *vyaṃjanato*, Ed. III, l. 6. The cases of the passive future participles in *tayva* are doubtful, as they may have been pronounced as they are written, compare Pali *mayham* and so forth. The Siddāpur version has *tavya* in *drahyitavyaṃ*.

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The cause of the formation of ligatures in order to express the absence of vowels must again be sought for in the influence of the Sanskrit phoneticists on the development of the Brāhma alphabet. The Prātiśākhyas and the later works on phonetics and grammar all use the expression *saṃyuktākṣara* "a conjunct syllable" for groups like *kta*, *kra* and so forth. The combination of the signs in writing looks very much like a practical illustration of the meaning of the term.

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The manner in which the absence of a vowel after a final consonant was probably expressed, has been stated in the remarks on the Anusvāra, above p. 74 f.

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The Bhaṭṭiprolu system of vowel-notation differs from the ordinary one merely by marking the short *a* by the bar, which denotes *ā* in the Edicts, and the long *ā* by the same bar *plus* a vertical or slanting stroke, hanging down from it, *e. g.* [Figure:]

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*na* and [Figure:] *nā*. This system, according to which the consonants have no inherent *a*, seems to have been invented in order to avoid the necessity of forming the ligatures, which make the ordinary Brāhma alphabet cumbersome and difficult to read in its later developments, and in order to express final consonants more conveniently. I believe it, therefore, to be of later origin, especially as the other Bhaṭṭiprolu vowel-signs do not differ from the ordinary ones. The invention must, of course, have been made for writing Sanskrit, as the Prakrits have few groups of dissimilar medial consonants and no final ones.

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To sum up—the forty four letters¹ of the ordinary Brāhma alphabet, traceable in the oldest inscriptions as well as the variants of the Bhaṭṭiprolu inscrip- [79] tions, contain representatives of, and derivatives from, all the twenty two Semitic characters, viz:—

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¹ With respect to the missing *AU* and (*A*)*ḥ* it may be noted, that the forms of *AU* in the Gupta and Pallava inscriptions, as well as those in the Bower MS, show that it was derived from *O* by the addition of a bar to the right of the vertical. But the medial *au* in the Bharahut Toraṇa inscription (Grundriss, I, 11, Taf. II. 28. XVIII) makes it probable that there was a second form with the additional bar to the left. Regarding the origin of the Visarga, which first occurs in the Kuṣana inscriptions, of the Jihvāmūlīya and Upadhmānīya, first traceable in the Gupta inscriptions, I am not able to suggest anything.

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| Semitic letters | Brāhma letters | Derivatives |
| *Aleph* | *a* (initial) | *ā* (initial and medial) |
| *Beth* | *ba* | *bha* |
| *Gimel* | *ga* | *gh* (Bhaṭṭiprolu) |
| *Daleth* | *dha* | *da*, *ḍa* ḍha / ḷa |
| *He* | *ha* | |
| *Waw* | *va* | *u* u / o (initial and medial) |
| *Zain* | *ja* | *jha* |
| *Cheth* | *gha* | |
| *Theth* | *tha* | *ṭha*, *ṭa* |
| *Yod* | *ya* | |
| *Kaph* | *ka* | |

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| Semitic letters | Brāhma letters | Derivatives |
| *Lamed* | *la* | *ḷ* (Bhaṭṭiprolu) |
| *Mem* | *ma* | *ṃ* (Anusvāra) |
| *Nun* | *na* | na na / ṇa |
| *Samech* | *ṣ* (Bhaṭṭiprolu) | sa / ṣa |
| *Ain* | *e* (initial) | e (medial) ai (init. & med.) / i, (initial & medial) |
| *Phe* | *pa* | *pha* |
| *Tsade* | *ca* | *cha* |
| *Qoph* | *kha* | |
| *Resh* | *ra* | |
| *Shin* | *śa* | |
| *Taw* | *ta* | |

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With the exception of the signs for the sibilants *śa* and *ṣa*-*sa*, which in consequence of modifications, introduced, it [80] would seem, independently by the Hindus,¹ resemble later Aramaic characters, the Brāhma letters closely agree with or are most easily derivable from the old types of the North-Semitic alphabet. And the Brāhma initial vowels *A* and *E* as well as the consonants *kha*, *ga*, *gha*, *tha*, *dha*, *ba* and *va* point to particularly archaic prototypes, while *ha* and *ta* appear to be connected with somewhat modified forms. It would, therefore, seem that the Semitic alphabet became known to the Hindus at a period when the angle of its *Aleph* opened wide and the vertical crossbar protruded about equally on the two sides, when the top of *Beth* was still closed, when *ga* consisted of an angle open below, when *Daleth* had not yet developed a tail, when *Waw* consisted of a semicircular head with a vertical depending from the middle, when *Cheth* had three bars, when *Theth* and *Ain* were quite or nearly circular and *Qoph* had a round head with a vertical hanging down from it, but when the simplified *He* consisting only of three strokes had been developed and the left half of the original crossbar of *Taw* had nearly or quite disappeared.

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¹ See the remarks made above p. 67 under No 15 and p. 71 under No 21.

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According to the dates of the Semitic inscriptions, which can come into question, those of Mesa's stone and the Assyrian weights, this period must fall somewhere between *circiter* 890 and 750 B. C., probably more towards the lower than the remoter of the two limits. Hence the *terminus a quo* for the introduction of the prototypes of the Brāhma letters lies between the beginning of the ninth century and the middle of the eighth, or about 800 B. C. And it seems to me that some further considerations make it probable that their actual importation took place at this early time.

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As the Brāhma *ha* goes back to a form of *He*, which is not found in any Phoenician alphabet, but occurs on the Assyrian weights, where also a *Taw* very similar to the Brāhma *ta* is found, the conjecture seems not altogether improbable that the Semitic alphabet may have come to India through Mesopotamia. And it would agree with such an assumption that passages in ancient Indian works prove the early existence of a navigation of the Indian Ocean and the somewhat [81] later occurrence of trading voyages, undertaken by Hindu merchants to the masūtras. Baudhāyana,¹ Dh. S. II, 2, 2, forbids them to the orthodox Brahmans and prescribes a severe penance for a transgression of the prohibition. But he admits, Dh. S. I, 2, 4, that such transgressions were common among the "Northerners", or strictly speaking, the Aryans living north of the author's home, the Dravidian districts. The other forbidden practices, mentioned in the same Sūtra as customary among the Northerners, such as the traffic in wool and in animals with two rows of teeth, (horses, mules, etc.), leave no doubt that the inhabitants of Western and Northwestern India are meant. It follows as a matter of course that their trade was carried on with Western Asia. The same author, Dh. Ś. I. 18. 14 and Gautama, X. 33 fix also the duties, payable by shipowners to the king. Even from still earlier times there is the story of a shipwreck, the scene of which must have been the Indian [82] Ocean. Numerous hymns of the Ṛgveda mention the mighty deed of the twin brethren, the Aśvins, who saved Bhujyu, the son of Tugra, from the sea, "where, as one account says,² there is no support, no rest for the foot or the hand, after he had ascended the hundred-oared galley," of the two deities.

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¹ Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XIV, pp. 146, 200, 217. Later Smṛtis *e. g.* Manu VIII, 157, give rules regarding marine insurance and other matters referring to sea-borne trade. Moreover, Manu III, 156 declares a Brahman, who has gone to sea, to be unworthy of entertainment at a Śrāddha.

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² Ṛ. V. I, 116. 5, see also the larger St. Petersburg Dictionary *sub voce* Bhujyu, and Prof. Oldenberg, Vedische Religion, p. 214. I quite agree with Professor Oldenberg regarding the interpretation of the myth, but I would not venture to infer from the deeds of the Aśvins and of their Greek representatives, the Dioskouroi, that the Indo-European race originally dwelt near the sea.

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The later Vedic literature contains also a few evidently Semitic legends, among which that of the Deluge and Manu's preservation in a ship, built by the advice of a miraculous fish, is the most noteworthy,³ and it is possible, that they may have been brought over from Mesopotamia by the early Indian navigators and traders. But this is of course a mere possibility, and other explanations of their occurrence in the Brahmanical literature may be and have been, suggested. The passages, adduced above, are however sufficient to prove that the Indo-Aryans began to navigate the Indian Ocean in very remote times, and it is, therefore, quite imaginable that they themselves imported the Semitic letters from Mesopotamia.¹

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³ I am glad to see that Professor Oldenberg, Vedische Religion, p. 276, also declares this myth to be borrowed from a Semitic source, in spite of Prof. M. Müller's and Prof. Lindner's attempts to make it an Indo-Aryan invention.

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¹ Compare the case of the Tibetan alphabet, the elements of which the Tibetan Thon-mi or Sambhoṭa is said to have imported from Magadha between A. D. 630—660, Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. LVII, p. 41 f.

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Between this importation and the complete elaboration of the Brāhma alphabet there lay, however, in all probability a prolonged period. This, I think, appears from the following considerations. One of the undeniable results of the preceeding enquiry is that the Brāhma alphabet must be considered the work of Brahmans, acquainted with phonetic and grammatical theories. The Pandit’s hand is clearly visible in the arrangement of the letters, used by Aśoka’s masons at Mahābodhi Gayā, according to their organic value as vowels, diphthongs, nasalised vowel, vowel with the spirant, gutturals, palatals and linguals. And it is also visible at a much earlier stage, in the very formation of the alphabet. Nobody but a [83] grammarian or phoneticist would have thought of deriving five nasals, one for each class of the Indian consonants, from the two Semitic prototypes and of inventing in addition a sign to denote the nasalisation of vowels, the Anusvāra, or of forming two spirants, *ha* and the Visarga. Nobody but a Sanskrit grammarian would express the initial *U* by half the sign for *va*,² and the phonetically very different, but etymologically allied *ṣa* and *sa* by modifications of one sign, or derive the initial *O* from *U*, *I* from *E*³ and *ḷa* from *ḍa*.⁴ And only a grammarian would invent the peculiar system of notation for medial vowels, which throughout marks the distinction between short and long ones⁵ omits the short *a*, and expresses the long *ā* by adding to the consonants the mark, used for differentiating *Ā* from *A*, and the remaining medial vowels by combinations of the initial vowelsigns, or of modifications thereof, with the consonants. This is so complicated and so highly artificial that only a Brahman's or Pandit's ingenuity can have worked it out.

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² See above p. 74.

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³ See above p. 66 f.

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⁴ See above p. 77.

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⁵ See Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik, vol. I, p. LVII, Note 3.

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There are also very good reasons for alleging that an Indian alphabet, elaborated by traders or other men of business, clerks and accountants, would never have possessed a single medial vowel. For until a very recent period, within the last fifty years, the Indian traders never used any medial vowels in their books or in their correspondence. Almost every child in Gujarāt knows the story of the letter,¹ sent by a Vāṇio to his relatives, which caused great grief and lamentation owing to the want of the vowel signs. The letter, it is said, contained the following passage: **कक अजमर गय अन कक कट छ ॥** On seeing it, the recipients at once began to lament loudly. They interpreted it to mean:—**काको आज मरी गयो अने काकी कूटे छे** “Uncle died to-day and aunt beats her breast.” A sympathising neighbour inquired for the cause of the wailing. On being shown the letter, he remarked that the outside did not bear the usual superscription of announcements of deaths, viz. “Strip and [84] read”,² and he suggested that the missive might be read:—**काको अजमीर गयो अने काकी कोट छे** “Uncle has gone to Ajmīr and aunt is at Koṭ.” On further enquiry this proved to be correct.

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¹ The story is a regular Indian “Joe Miller”, and is commonly told by the masters to the schoolboys. Dr. G. A. Grierson informs me that a similar story is current in the Bengal Presidency.

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² A Hindu becomes impure on hearing of the death of a relative and is obliged to throw away the clothes, which he wears when the news of such an event comes. In order to obviate unnecessary loss, the announcements of deaths bear on the outside the words, given above.

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The progress of vernacular education and the action of the English lawcourts and of the native princes has of late changed these habits of the mercantile classes. As the law-courts refuse to take ledgers written without vowel-signs as legal evidence, as the native princes follow suit,³ and as the schools now teach composition, the Vāṇiās and accountants write at present more frequently in the same manner as the Brahmans do and have done always and almost without exception.¹

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³ In 1875 Mahārāja Raṇbīrsingh of Kaśmīr told me that he had weaned his clerks from the bad habit of writing their Ṭakkarī or Dogrā characters without vowels by refusing to pass accounts written in this manner.

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¹ I have seen one Gujarātī inscription without vowels, which *may* be due to a Brahman. It is incised on the right hand gate post of the temple of Dharaṇīdhar at Dehemā in Northwestern Gujarat and omitting the date, runs thus: **तरख न फज अव न वव न रव हर ॥** Its meaning was interpreted to me, as follows: **तुरखनी फोज आवी ने वावनो राओ हार्यो** “The Musalman army came and the Rāo of Vāv was defeated.”

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With such propensities prevailing among the business people of modern times, it is difficult to believe that those belonging to a very remote antiquity would have acted differently and would have framed for their writing a vowel-system which their descendants discarded. Nevertheless—though the Brahman schoolmen undoubtedly have framed the Brāhma alphabet,—the introduction of its elements, the Semitic signs, into India is presumably due to the merchant class.² For the Vāṇiās naturally came most into contact with foreign nations. Moreover, they were the men who most urgently wanted a means for perpetuating the record of their daily transactions, while the Brahmans possessed since very early times the system of oral instruction for preserving their literary composi@H [85]tions and for teaching them to their pupils, to which they have always adhered. Traces of the existence of this system are found, as Professor Max Müller has already pointed out, even in the Ṛgveda, in the famous Frog-hymn, Ṛ. V., VII, 103, 5, where it is said of the bull-frogs, that the one imitates the cry of the other, “just as a pupil repeats the words of his teacher”. Its full development, which is found in the later Vedic works, both the Brāhmaṇas and the Vedāṅgas and has been described repeatedly,³ must certainly be as early as the period when the Semitic letters can have been imported, or even more ancient. With this system the Brahmans cannot have felt the necessity for writing so strongly as the men of business, and it is also for this reason improbable that they should have been the first Hindus who practised writing. Nay, it may be even doubted whether they cared to undertake the adaptation of the foreign invention very soon after it had become known to the mercantile class.

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² See also Westergaard, Zwei Abhandlungen, p. 37 f.

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³ M. Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 503 ff., compare also A. Weber, Indische Studien, X, p. 128 ff.

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Further, when they undertook it, the evolution of the 46 signs of the Brāhmī lipi from the 22 Semitic characters cannot have been accomplished very quickly. The evidence of the Bhaṭṭiprolu alphabet shows that in the case of several letters more attempts than one were made, and the alphabet of the Edicts, the ordinary Brāhmī lipi, likewise bears witness that the signs were invented gradually. As has been pointed out above, the dental *dha* yielded, by a slight transposition of one of its lines, the dental *da*, from this the lingual *ḍa* was derived by the omission of the lower vertical stroke, and from the lingual *ḍa* came, by the addition of a curve, the lingual *ḍha*, as well as, by the addition of the semicircle, the lingual *ḷa*. The series of the derivatives from *va*, from the dental *tha*, the dental *na*, the Bhaṭṭiprolu *ṣ* and from the initial *E* are similarly complicated. It is incredible that in these cases the whole series of derivatives should have been invented at one time or even in quick succession, though no doubt the Brahmans had their system of phonetics, based on spoken works, to guide them and to help them on.

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[86] It would thus seem that a not inconsiderable interval must lie between the first importation of the Semitic letters and the complete elaboration of the Brāhma alphabet. First the imported characters remained in the hands of the traders and the men of business, during which period, as perhaps may be inferred from the treatment of the Arabic letters during the Mahommedan period, none or very slight modifications were introduced. Next came the transference of the foreign invention to the Brahmans and finally its adaptation to the wants of the Sanskrit language.

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These considerations certainly show that the introduction of the Semitic letters must fall centuries before the period when the Brāhma alphabet was in general use, *i. e.* 500 B. C. or thereabouts. And they thus confirm the approximate date, deduced above from the age of the Semitic signs, which appear to have been the prototypes of the Indian modifications. This date, I repeat, is merely approximate and I may add, provisional. New finds of ancient Semitic or Indian inscriptions may, and very likely will, alter it. And I should not be surprised, if such discoveries forced us to put the *terminus a quo* for the introduction of the Semitic characters into India earlier than is advisable on the evidence, available at present.

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Finally, the fact that the Brāhma alphabet is the work of the Brahmans has also, it seems to me, a certain bearing on the vexed question whether in ancient times writing was used for literary purposes. I believe that it enables us to answer this question in the affirmative, of course with certain reservations. For the Brahmans, though often considered mere dreamers, are in reality very practical people, who, as far as my observation goes, do not take and never have taken trouble with anything that does not serve their purposes. As they adapted the Semitic letters to the wants of their sacred language in a very thorough manner, I consider it certain that they also utilised their invention at once for their special aims, the cultivation of learning, and that they committed at least their scientific compositions to writing. It is not necessary, nor even probable, that in early times the MSS. were used otherwise than *esoterically*, as auxiliaries for composition and for the preservation of the texts, much in the manner suggested by Geheimrath von Böhtlingk, Professor Whitney and Dr. Burnell.¹

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¹ See Elements of South-Indian Palaeography, p. 10 and compare also the Grundriss, I, 11, p. 3 f.

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Their Mantras and other sacred compositions may have remained unwritten somewhat longer. That is no more than might be expected, as the Brahmans had a great interest in [87] keeping their “great medicine” secret. And there are also several indications to this effect, such as the imprecations against copyists of the Veda and the general feeling, even among the heterodox sectarians, that sacred books ought to be preserved only orally.

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The Southern Bauddhas and the Jainas give expression to this feeling by asserting that their sacred books were written only many centuries after their composition. But it may be doubted, whether their dates are always quite correct. The occurrence of a *peṭaki* (literally “a Piṭaka-possessor”) a monk who knows one or more Piṭakas (see above p. 18), certainly proves that the Buddhist scriptures were written, when the Bharahut Stūpa was built. *Piṭaka* is only ‘a basket’ or ‘a box’ and corresponds to the modern *ḍābaḍo* of cardboard or wood in which the Jainas usually keep the MSS. of their parish libraries. As soon as the Buddhists divided their scriptures into Piṭakas,¹ they must of course have been written. If, as I believe, the inscription of the *peṭaki*, which shows the same characters as the Edicts, belongs approximately to the same time as the latter, the traditional date of the Ceylonese Buddhists, who say that their Canon was first committed to writing about 88 B. C., must be considerably wrong. The oldest MSS., actually found, are probably the birch bark leaves, inscribed with Kharoṣṭhī letters, from the topes of the Panjab.³ Next comes the Bower MSS. with the characters of the oldest Gupta inscriptions, then follow the Horiuzi palmleaf, the Bakhshālī MS., the Cambridge Collection from Nepal and the Bombay Collections of Jaina MSS. Older documents than are accessible at present, both on birchbark or palmleaves and on stone or metal, will no doubt be found, as soon as the old historical sites of India are excavated in a thorough and rational manner.

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¹ The term *piṭaka* occurs in one of the latest portions of the Vinaya, the Parivāra, I, 1 (Oldenberg Vinaya piṭaka, vol. V, p. 3), where also a *tipeṭakī* is mentioned.

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² Though often appealed to in proof of the late use of writing for literary purposes (see e. g. Sacred Books of the East, vol. XIII, p. XXXV ff.), this assertion of the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa is, I fear, not worth much more than the contradictory story of the Chinese Buddhists. The Chinese boldly assert that the Canon was written on palm leaves immediately after Buddha’s death (Grundriss, I, 11, p. 89) and that in A. D. 489 a MS. of the Vinaya was extant, which bore 975 dots, marking the number of the readings at the annual Pavāraṇā since the time of Upāli, who is said to have entered the first dot (Jour. R. As. Soc., 1896, p. 436 f.). Like similar, certainly incorrect, stories of the Brahmans and others regarding their scriptures, the tradition of the two Pali chronicles may be taken merely as the product of the well founded belief that the Buddhists, imitating the Brahmans, preserved their scriptures orally for a prolonged period. But even if it is considered to be historical, it refers only to Ceylon not to India.

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³ One small fragment with the letters *mi*, *dha* and *ya* (?) is figured in H. H. Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua, Plate III, No 11.

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