On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.s3.32

c7.s3.32

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.