On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c9.5

c9.5

If we turn to the comparison of the several symbols beginning with 4, it is evident that the oldest Indian forms of eight out of the total of seventeen come close to the hieratic or to both the hieratic and the demotic. It is also evident that those differences, which are observable, are due either to the desire to simplify the cumbersome Egyptian signs or to the tendency to transform them into Brāhma letters and syllables.³ The five of Col. V, a, appears to be derived from the hieratic sign of Col. I, which has been turned from the left to the right, while the side-limb has been attached lower in order to obtain an approach to the Brāhma *tra*. The six of Col. III, a, likewise comes close to that of Col. I, the slight alteration being made in order to obtain the looped Brāhma *ja*, from which latter the signs in Col. III, b—c, and in Col. V, a looped *sa* and *phra* or *phu*, seem to have been developed in their turn. The seven of Cols IV—V looks like a modification of that in Col. I, a, made in order to obtain a sign similar to *gra* or *gu*, the later Indian letter-symbol. The nine of Cols IV—V agrees almost exactly with the hieratic and demotic signs in Cols I—II. The fifty of Col. III, b, is produced by a slight simplification of the symbols in Cols I—II, while the fifty of Col. III, a, has been turned round from the left to the right. More strongly modified and more remote from the hieratic signs are the Indian symbols for 60 and 70 in Col. V, the second of which has been converted into a Brāhma *pū*. Finally the thousand of Cols IV—V, especially the second, look like derivatives from the corresponding Egyptian signs in Cols I—II, which however have been turned topsy-turvy and slightly altered in order to produce the Brāhma syllables *ro*, *cu* and *dhu*.