Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s4.2

c6.s4.2

[10] Among the numerous greatly differing proposals to explain the origin of the Brāhmī,⁶ there are five for which complete demonstrations have been attempted : — (1) A. CUNNINGHAM'S derivation from indigenous Indian hieroglyphics;⁷ (2) A. WEBER'S derivation from the most ancient Phoenician characters;⁸ (3) W. DEECKE'S derivation from the Assyrian cuneiform characters, through an ancient South-Semitic alphabet which is also the parent of the Sabaean or Himyaritic script;⁹ (4) I. TAYLOR'S derivation from a lost South-Arabian alphabet, the predecessor of the Sabaean;¹⁰ (5) J. HALÉVY'S derivation from a mixture of Aramaic, Kharosthī and Greek letters of the last quarter of the fourth century B. C.¹¹