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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s1: § 1. — The Indian tradition

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s1

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§ 1. — The Indian tradition

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¹ B.IS. III², 23—35; comp. Anecdota Oxon., Aryan Series, I, 3, 67; B.ESIP. 6; A. LUDWIG, Yavanānī, Sitz. Ber. Böhm. Ges. d. Wiss. 1893, IX., and the works quoted by Dr. BURNELL.

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THE tradition of both the orthodox and the heterodox sects of India ascribes the invention of writing, or at least of the chief script, to the creator Brahmā, and thereby claims it as a national invention of the remotest antiquity. The former view is found in the Nārada-Smṛti,² a redaction of the Manusaṃhitā (mentioned by Bāṇa abont A. D. 620), and in Bṛhaspati's Vārttika on Manu,³ as well as in Hiuen Tsiang⁴ and in the Jaina Samavāyāṅga-Sūtra (traditional date about B. C. 300), the account of which latter work is repeated in the Paṇṇāvaṇā-Sūtra (traditional date B. C. 168).⁵ The story is also indicated in the representations of Brahmā at Bādāmi of about A. D. 580, where the deity holds in one of his hands a bundle of palm-leaves,⁶ for which in later representations an inscribed sheet of paper is substituted.⁷

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² SBE. 23, 58 f.

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³ SBE. 23, 304.

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⁴ Siyuki 1, 77 (BEAL).

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⁵ W.IS. 16, 280, 399.

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⁶ IA. 6, 366, Pl.

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⁷ MOOR, Hindu Pantheon, Pl. 3, 4; AR. 1, 243.

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The story, according to which in particular the Indian script running from the left to the right is an invention of Brahmā (*Fan*), is told in full in the Chinese Buddhistic Fawanshulin.⁸ The two Jaina works mentioned above, and the Lalitavistara,⁹ indicate its existence by naming the most important script *bambhī* or *brāhmī*. These traditional statements make it advisable to adopt the designation *Brāhmī* for the characters in which the majority of the Aśoka edicts are written, and for their later developments.

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⁸ BOR. 1, 59.

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⁹ Sansk. text, 143 (Bibl. Ind.), and the Chinese translation of A. D. 308.

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Berūnī¹⁰ mentions a slightly different story. He says that the Hindus once had forgotten the art of writing, and that through a divine inspiration it was rediscovered by Vyāsa, the son of Parāśara. Accordingly, the history of the Indian alphabets would begin with the Kaliyuga, in B. C. 3101.

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¹⁰ India 1, 171 (SACH

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While these myths tend to show that the Hindus had forgotten the origin of their alphabet in early times, — perhaps already about B. C. 300, but certainly before the beginning of our era, — there are some other portions of their traditions which possess a greater and a positive value. The two Jaina Sūtras referred to above, contain a list of 18 separate alphabets; and the Lalitavistara¹¹ enumerates 64 scripts which are said to have existed in the time of Buddha. Several among the names of the two lists agree, and there are in particular four which, as may have been already recognised, have a claim to be considered authentic and historical.

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¹¹ loc. cit. ; a third list, with about 30 mostly very corrupt names, in the Mahāvastu 1, 135 (SENART).

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Besides the *brāhmī* or *bambhī*, which is the parent of all the still existing alphabets of India, two more can be identified with known scripts. The *kharoṣṭhī* or *kharoṭṭhī* is, as the Fawan-shulin states,¹ the writing running from the right to the left, invented by one Kharoṣṭha, "Ass-lip,"² and is the same character which European scholars formerly used to call Bactrian, Indo-Bactrian, Bactro-Pali, Ariano-Pali, &c. The *drāviḍī* or *dāmilī* of the lists is very [2] probably the partly independent variety of the Brāhmī, which recently has become known through the relic vessels from the Stūpa of Bhaṭṭiprolu in the Kistna district.³ Besides, the name *puṣkarasārī* or *pukkharasāriyā* is certainly historical, as it is evidently connected with the *nomen gentile* *Puṣkarasādi* or *Pauṣkarasādi* (with the Northern Buddhists *Puṣkarasāri*) by which one or several ancient teachers of law and grammar are mentioned in Pāṇini's grammar, Āpastamba's Dharmasūtra, and other works. It appears not incredible that a member of the family of Puṣkarasad may have invented a new alphabet or modified an existing one. The list of the Jainas includes also the name *yavaṇāliyā* or *yavaṇāṇiyā*, which is identical with *yavanānī*, "the writing of the Yavanas or Greeks," of Pāṇini (traditional date about B. C. 350).⁴ An early acquaintance of the Hindus with the Greek alphabet may have been brought about by the expedition of Skylax to North-Western India in B. C. 509, or by the fact that Indian and Gandharan troops took part in Xerxes' war against Greece,⁵ and even by an ancient commercial intercourse. At all events, finds of Indian imitations of Attic drachmes with Greek inscriptions tend to prove the use of the Greek alphabet in North-Western India before the time of Alexander.⁶

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¹ BOR. 1, 59.

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² Comp. WZKM. 9, 63, and B.IS. III², 113 f.

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³ EI. 2, 323 ff.

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⁴ Mahābhāṣya 2, 220 (KIELHORN).

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⁵ Herodotus, VII, 65, 66

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⁶ B. V. HEAD, Cat. of Greek Coins: Attica, p. XXXI. f., pp. 25—27.

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As some names of the Jaina list are thus shown to be ancient by the results of epigraphic researches and by Pāṇini, as well as by the agreement of the independent tradition of the Northern Buddhists, the list is not without historical value. And it may be considered at least highly probable that a fairly large number of alphabets was known or used in India about B. C. 300. The exact number, 18, which the Jainas mention, must however be taken merely as conventional, as it frequently occurs in traditional statements.

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An extract from the lost Dṛṣṭivāda of the Jainas also gives some further account of the ancient Brāhmī.⁷ It states that this alphabet contained only 46 radical signs, instead of the usual number of 50 or 51. The letters intended are without a doubt : *A*, *Ā*, *I*, *Ī*, *U*, *Ū*, *E*, *AI*, *O*, *AU* (10), *Aṃ*, *Aḥ*; *ka*, *kha*, *ga*, *gha*, *ṅa*, *ca*, *cha*, *ja* (20), *jha*, *ña*, *ṭa*, *ṭha*, *ḍa*, *ḍha*, *ṇa*, *ta*, *tha*, *da* (30), *dha*, *na*, *pa*, *pha*, *ba*, *bha*, *ma*, *ya*, *ra*, *la* (40), *va*, *śa*, *ṣa*, *sa*, *ha*, *ḷa*; while the *mātṛkās* *Ṛ*, *Ṝ*, *Ḷ*, *Ḹ*, and the ligature *kṣa*, which in later times was often erroneously considered a *mātṛkā*, were excluded. The four liquid vowels are wanting also in the alphabet of the Lalitavistara,⁸ and in that of the modern elementary schools. In the latter the instruction is based on the so-called *Bārākhaḍī* (Skt. *dvādaśākṣarī*), a table of the combinations of the consonants with the twelve vowels mentioned above, *e. g.*, *ka*, *kā*, to *kaṃ*, *kaḥ*. The antiquity of the *Bārākhaḍī*, which from its Maṅgala *Om namaḥ siddham* is at present sometimes called *Siddhākṣarasamāmnāya* or *Siddhamātṛkā*, is attested by Hui-lin (A. D. 788—810),⁹ who mentions it as the first of the twelve *fan* or 'cycles' (evidently Hiuen Tsiang's twelve *chang*)¹⁰ with which the Hindu boys began their studies. Further evidence for the omission of the vowels *Ṛ*, *Ṝ*, *Ḷ*, *Ḹ* is furnished by Hiuen Tsiang's remark¹¹ that the Indian alphabet of his time contained 47 letters (the last one being probably the ligature *kṣa*), and by the fragments of the incomplete alphabet of Aśoka's stone-masons at Gayā,¹² which may be restored as follows: *A*, **A*, **I*, **Ī*, **U*, **Ū*, **E*, **AI*, **O*, **AU* (10), **Aṃ* or **Aḥ*, *ka*, **kha*, **ga*, **gha*, *ṅa*, **ca*, *cha*, **ja*, **jha* (20), **ña*, **ṭa*.

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⁷ W.IS. 16, 281.

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⁸ Sansk. text, Bibl. Ind. 145; LEFMANN. 127.

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⁹ B.IS. III ², 30.

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¹⁰ Siyuki 1, 78 (BEAL); ST. JULIEN, Mémoires des pèlerins Bouddhiques 1, 72, and note.

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¹¹ Siyuki 1, 77.

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¹² B.IS. III², 31.

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All these various points tend to show that the popular Brāhmī contained, as the Jaina tradition asserts, since the third century B. C. only 46 letters, and that, as the occurrence of the vowels *AI*, *AU*, *Am*, *Aḥ* and the consonant *ṅa* proves, it was adapted to the wants of the Sanskrit language. But it is not [3] improbable that the Brahmans already then used particular signs for the liquid vowels in their works on grammar and phonetics. The method, however, according to which the actually known signs for these sounds have been formed, differs from that adopted for the other vowel-signs. The medial *ṛ*, *ṝ*, and *ḷ* were developed first, and the initials later; while in the case of *a*, *ā*, &c., the process was the contrary one (see below, § 4, and § 24, A, 6, 7). The Chinese have also preserved an Indian tradition asserting that *ṛ*, *ṝ*, and *ḷ* are later additions to the original alphabet.¹

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¹ B.IS. III², 33.

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