On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c7.s3.7

c7.s3.7

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.