Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s5.14

c6.s5.14

Nevertheless, the oldest known form of the Brāhmī is, without a doubt, a script framed by learned Brahmans for writing Sanskrit. This assertion is borne out not only by the remnants of the Gayā alphabet of Aśoka's stone-masons, which must have contained signs for the Sanskrit vowels *AI* and *AU*, and which is arranged according to phonetic principles, but also by the influence of phonetic and grammatical principles which is clearly discernible in the formation of the derivative signs. The hand of the phonologist and grammarian is recognisable in the following points: (1) the development of five nasal letters and of a sign for nasalisation in general from two Semitic signs, as well as of a complete set of signs for the long vowels,³ which latter are very necessary for the phonologist and grammarian, but not for men of business, and are therefore unknown in other ancient alphabets; (2) the derivation of the signs for the phonetically very different, but grammatically cognate, *sa* and *ṣa* from one Semitic sign (Samekh); (3) the notation of *U* by the half of *va*, from which the vowel is frequently derived by *samprasāraṇa*; (4) the derivation of *O* from *U* (*o* being the guṇa-vowel of *u*) by the addition of a stroke; of *I* by a simplification of the sign for its guṇa-vowel *E*; of *AI*, the vṛddhi-vowel, from *E* the guṇa-vowel of *I*; and of *ḷa* from *ḍa*, the former consonant being frequently a substitute for the latter, as in *īḷe* for *īḍe*; (5) the non-expression of medial *a*, in accordance with the teaching of the grammarians who consider it to inhere in every consonant; the expression of medial *ā* by the difference between *A* and *Ā*, and of the remaining medial vowels by combinations of the initial ones, or of cursive simplifications of the same, with the consonants, as well as of the absence of vowels by ligatures of the consonants, which apparently illustrate the grammatical term *saṁyuktākṣara*. All this has so learned an appearance and is so artificial that it can only have been invented by Pandits, not by traders or clerks. The fact that the Vāṇias and the accountants until recent times used to omit all medial vowels in their correspondence and account-books, permits even the inference that an Indian alphabet, elaborated by such men, would not possess any such vowel-signs. And it is immaterial for the correctness of this inference, whether the modern defective writing is a survival from the most ancient period or is due to the introduction of the Arabic alphabet in the middle ages.