On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c9.7

c9.7

The list of closely similar signs will also include the hundred, if it may be assumed that the Indian signs of Col. V, which look like modifications of the hieratic in Col. I, in reality are older than those of the Aśoka Edicts and of the Nānāghāt inscription in Cols III—IV. And it seems to me possible to defend such an assumption. For the Andhra and Kṣatrapa signs for 100, which are also found very frequently in the Sanskrit inscriptions of the 5^th—8^th cent. A. D. from Western India as well as in the Kaliṅga landgrants of the 8^th cent., in all probability represent the syllable *śu*.¹ Its *śa* has a form which corresponds to the oldest Semitic *Shin*² with two angles but has been turned topsy-turvy, and which is older than the *śa* of the third century B. C.³ Further, with the assumption that the hundred of Col. V is really the oldest, it becomes possible to explain the origin of those in Col. III—IV. As the Aśoka sign opposite 200⁴ in Col. III, a, clearly shows, they represent the Brāhma syllable *su*, and *su* is in Prakrit the regular representative of a Sanskrit *śu*. The process of the development of the Indian hundreds would therefore be as follows. The Hindus first converted the hieratic hundred into an archaic *śu* (Col. V). Next they substituted its phonetic Prakrit representative *su* for it (200, Col. III, a) and finally they again modified the form of *su* in order to indicate that it has not a phonetic but a numeral value (200, Col. III, b—c; 100—700, Col. IV).