Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s3: § 3. — Paleographic evidence

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s3

Language: English

§ 3. — Paleographic evidence

The results of a paleographic examination of the most ancient Indian inscriptions fully agree with the literary evidence, which bears witness to the widely spread use of writing during the fifth century B. C. and perhaps even during the sixth. The characters of the Aśoka edicts, which have to be considered first, prove very clearly that writing was no recent invention in the third century B. C. The alphabet of the edicts is not homogeneous. All the letters, with the exception of *U*, *jha*, *ña*, *na*, *ṭha*, *ṇa*, *tha* and *na*, have several often very dissimilar forms, which are partly local and partly cursive varieties. The number of the variants of one letter sometimes amounts to nine or ten. Thus plate II, 1, 2, cols. II—XII, shows for *A*, *Ā*, no less than ten forms, among which the eight most important ones may be placed here side by side: —

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The first sign has hardly any resemblance to the last. But the sequence in the row shows their connection and their development. The first seven owe their existence to a predilection partly [7] for angles and partly for curves, — two mutually contradictory tendencies, which find their expression also in the forms of other letters of pl. II, such as *gha*, *ḍa*, *da*, *la*, &c. The signs Nos. 1, 2, 3 of the series given above, are due to the first tendency, and Nos. 6, 7 to the second. Nos. 4, 5 show the transition from the angle to the curve, and No. 8 is a cursive simplification of No. 6. These eight signs are not found in all the versions of the Aśoka edicts, but are divided locally as follows. The angular forms Nos. 1, 2, 3 appear only in the south, in Girnār, Siddāpura, Dhauli, and Jaugada, side by side with Nos. 4 to 7. And it must be noted that the latter are rare in Girnār and Siddāpura, but in the majority in Dhauli and Jaugada. In the versions discovered north of the Narmadā or the Vindhya, we find mostly only Nos. 4 to 7, but in Kālsī No. 8 also is common, and it occurs a few times in Rāmpūrva. Hence the angular forms of *A*, *Ā*, appear to be specially southern ones, and they are no doubt also the most ancient. The first inference is confirmed by a comparison of the most nearly allied inscriptions. The relic vessels from Kolhāpur⁶ and Bhaṭṭiprolu (pl. II, cols. XIII—XV), and the oldest Andhra inscription from the Nānāghāṭ (pl. II, cols. XXIII, XXIV) again show the angular *A*, *Ā*, either exclusively or together with the mixed forms Nos. 4, 5, while the numerous inscriptions found further north on the Stūpas of Sāñci and Bharahut, in Pabhosa and Mathurā (pl. II, cols. XVIII—XX) on the coins of Agathocles, and in the Nāgārjunī cave (pl. II, col. XVII), offer either pure curved letters or mixed ones. An exception in Mahābodhi-Gayā¹ is probably explained by the fact that pilgrims from the south incised records of their donations at the famous sanctuary. Similar differences between northern and southern forms may be observed in the case of *kha*, *ja*, *ma*, *ra* and *sa*,² and they are all the more important as the circumstances under which the Aśoka edicts were incised did not favour the free use of local forms.³ But the existence of local forms always points to a long continued use of the alphabet in which it is observable.

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⁶ B.ASRWI. No. 10, 3.

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¹ C.MG. pl. 10, 2.

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² See below, § 16, C.

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³ See below, § 16, B.

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Equally important is the occurrence of apparently or really advanced and cursive types which for the greater part reappear or become constant in the later inscriptions. The subjoined table shows in line *A* the most important modern looking signs from the Aśoka edicts, and in line *B* the corresponding ones from later inscriptions.

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Four among these signs, Nos. 2, 7, 10, 21, are, as will appear further on,⁴ really archaic, but the remainder are partly secondary, partly tertiary cursive forms. To the last-mentioned belong in particular Nos. 4, 8, 11, 15 and 19. **[8]** Among the letters from the later inscriptions in line *B*, Nos. 9, 11, 12 and 19 appear in the Nāgārjunī cave inscriptions of Aśoka's grandson Daśaratha; Nos. 2, 6—8, 10, 13—16 and 21 in Khāravela's Hāthigumphā inscription and in the oldest Andhra inscriptions, Nāsik No. 1 and Nānāghāt, as well as in the archaic Mathurā inscriptions, all of which documents belong to the period between about B. C. 170 and 150. Nos. 1, 3 and 22 are still later, and occur first in the inscriptions of the Kuṣaṇas from Mathurā and in the Andhra and Ābhīra inscriptions from Nāsik of the first and second centuries A. D. Occasionally the Aśoka edicts show also the short top-stroke, the so-called *Serif*, which is so characteristic for the later alphabets and causes numerous modifications.⁵ Very commonly, too, appear the upward strokes for medial *ā* and *e*, the cursive rounded *i* (in Girnār sometimes not distinguishable from *ā*), more rarely the later straight *o*-stroke, and once a looped *o*.⁶ Finally, the Anusvāra sometimes stands, as is generally the case in later times, above the letter after which it is pronounced.⁷

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⁴ See below, § 4, A.

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⁵ See below, § 16, C.

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⁶ See below, § 16, C.

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⁷ See below, § 16, D.

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The existence of so many local varieties, and of so very numerous cursive forms, proves in any case that writing had had a long history in Aśoka's time, and that the alphabet was then in a state of transition. The use of the cursive forms together with archaic ones may possibly be explained by the assumption that several, partly more archaic and partly more advanced, alphabets were simultaneously used during the third century B. C., and that the writers, intending or ordered to use lapidary forms, through negligence mixed them with the more familiar cursive letters, as has also happened not rarely in later inscriptions. It is possible to adduce in favour of this view the above-mentioned tradition of the Dṛṣṭivāda, according to which a larger number of alphabets was in use about B. C. 300. The conjecture would become a certainty, if it could be shown that the word *seto*, "the white (elephant)," which has been added to Dhauli edict VI. in order to explain the sculpture above the middle column, was incised at the same time as the preceding edicts. The two characters of *seto* show the types of the Kuṣana and Gupta inscriptions.¹ Though it is difficult to understand that, in later times, anybody should have cared to add the explanation of the relief, keeping exactly the line of the edict, the possibility of the assumption that this was actually done, is not altogether excluded.

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¹ B.ASRSI. 1, 115.

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The Eraṇ coin with the legend running from the right to the left,² offers a contribution to the earlier history of the Brāhmī. It shows the ancient *sa* with the straight side-stroke, but the later *ma* with the semicircular top, and the *dha* turned to the left. The coin probably dates from the time when the Brāhmī was written both from the right to the left and from the left to the right. Even if one makes due allowance for the fact that coins often reproduce archaic forms long gone out of fashion, one can only agree with CUNNINGHAM (CAI. 101), who thinks that the coin is older than the Maurya period; and one must allot it, if not to B. C. 400, at least to the middle of the fourth century. The time when the Brāhmī was written βουστροφηδόν probably lies somewhat before the Maurya period, since the Aśoka edicts show only few traces of the writing from right to left, in the *O* of Jaugada and Dhauli and in the rare *dha* of Jangada and Delhi-Sivālik (plate II, 8, VI, and 26, V, VI).³ In connection with this coin it is also necessary to mention the Patnā seals (C.ASR. 15, pl. 3, 1, 2), which very likely are older than the time of the Mauryas. The first with the legend Nadaya (Naṇḍāya), "(the seal) of Nandā," shows a *da* open to the right, [9] and the second with the inscription *Agapalasa* (*Aṃgapālaśśa*) shows an *A* in its original position (pl. II, 1, I). More important results for the history of the Brāhmī may be obtained from the Drāviḍī of the relic caskets of Bhaṭṭiprolu,⁴ already referred to above. This alphabet contains, besides various characters agreeing with the southern variety of the Aśoka edicts, (1) three signs, *dh*, *d* and *bh*, in the position of the writing running from right to left; (2) three signs, *c*, *j* and *ṣ*, which are more archaic than those of the Aśoka edicts and of the Eraṇ coin; (3) two signs, *l* and *ḷ*, derived independently from the old Semitic originals; (4) one new sign, *gh*, derived from *g*, the *mātṛkā gha* of the Brāhmī being at the same time discarded. The reasons for the assertions under 2 and 3 will be adduced in the next paragraph. But if the assertions themselves are true, it certainly follows that, whatever the age of the inscriptions may be, the Drāviḍa alphabet separated from the main stock of the Brāhmī long before the Eraṇ coin was struck, at the latest in the fifth century B. C.

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² C.CAI. pl. 11, 18, and plate II, col. I, of this work.

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³ If according to C.CMI, 27, as Mr. A. V. SMITH points out to me, some coins of Mihirakula show inscriptions running from the right to the left, this peculiarity must be ascribed to Sassanian influence.

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⁴ Plate II, cols. XIII—XV.

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This estimate carries us back to the period for which the Ceylonese canon proves the general use of writing in India, without however giving the name of the current alphabet. It seems therefore natural to conjecture that the alphabet known to the earliest Buddhist authors was a form of the Brāhmī; and there are some further facts which favour this view. Firstly, recent discoveries have made it evident that the Brāhmī has been commonly used since the earliest times even in North-Western India, and that it was indeed the real national script of all Hindus.⁵ In the ruins of Taxila, the modern Shāh-Derī in the Pañjāb, coins have been found which are struck according to the old Indian standard, and some of which bear inscriptions in Kharoṣṭhī, while the majority show legends in the oldest type of the Brāhmī, sometimes together with transcripts in Kharosthī.¹ These coins are certainly not later than the third century B. C. Perhaps they even date, as CUNNINGHAM thinks, from a much earlier time about B. C. 400. Some of them have been struck by *nejamā* or guilds, those of the *Dojaka* or *Dujaka*, of the *Tālimata* and of the *Atakatakā* (?), and one with the inscription *Vatasvaka* probably was issued by a section of the tribe of the *Aśvakas* (*Assakenoi*), named after the *vaṭa*-tree, the Ficus religiosa. These finds decidedly establish the popular use of the Brāhmī in the Pañjāb, side by side with the Kharosthī, at least for the third century B. C. Mr. RAPSON'S discovery of Persian *sigloi* with letters in Kharosthī and in Brāhmī proves that both alphabets were used together *much earlier*.² For, in all probability these *sigloi* were current during the rule of the Akhaemenians over North-Western India, or before B. C. 331.

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⁵ C.CAI. 38 f.

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¹ C.CAI, pl. 2, 3.

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² WZKM. 9, 65; B.IS. III², 113.

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Secondly, DR. TAYLOR'S view regarding the origin of the Kharosthī has become more and more probable, and it must now be admitted that this alphabet was developed out of the later Aramaic characters after the conquest of the Pañjāb by Darius, which happened about B. C. 500.³ And it becomes more and more difficult to refuse credence to the conjecture of A. WEBER, E. THOMAS and A. CUNNINGHAM, according to which the principles ruling the already developed Brāhmī have been utilised in the formation of the Kharosthī.⁴ According to our present information, the Kharosthī is the only alphabet, besides the Brāhmī, to which the Buddhists possibly could refer. But as it was only a secondary script even in Gandhāra, and as it was developed only in the fifth century, the possibility suggested becomes improbable, and the Brāhmī alone has a claim to be considered as the alphabet known to the authors of the Ceylonese canon.