Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s15.t1: A. — The alphabet of the Kṣatrapas of Mālva and Gujarāt; Plate III
Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s15.t1
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A. — The alphabet of the Kṣatrapas of Mālva and Gujarāt; Plate III
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While the inscriptions of Northern India thus show in the first and second centuries A. D. the beginning of the development of a new local variety of the Brāhmī, we find in the documents from Western and Central India, as well as from the Dekhan, the first steps leading up to the later southern alphabets. The inscriptions and coins of the Kṣatrapa dynasty of Mālva and Gujarāt, descended from Caṣṭana or Tiastanes, illustrate the western writing, and col. VI, taken from the Girnār Praśasti of the reign of Rudradāman (about A. D. 160)⁵ gives a specimen of it. This script agrees with the later southern alphabets (§ 27, below) in the following characteristic points: — (1) in the curves at the ends of *A* and *Ā* (1, 2), *ka* (7), *ña* (15), *ra* (32), and of medial *u* and *ū* (not in the plate); (2) in the round-backed *ḍa* (18); (3) in the *ba* (28), notched on the left; (4) in the *la* (33) with the vertical bent to the left; and (5) in the medial *ṛ* (see *sṛ*, 37), which is difficult to distinguish from *ra*. Its other letters, for instance, *śa* (35) and the tripartite subscribed *ya* of *lya* (42), partly agree with those of the inscriptions of Soḍāsa, and partly, — for instance, *kha* (8), *na* (25) with the bent base-line, *pa* (26) with the notch in the left vertical, *ya* (31) with the curve on the left, and the frequently rounded *va* (34), — with the types of the Kuṣana period. Peculiar is its *ṭa* (16). Its cursive medial *ū*, which is used only in *nū* (25) and in *rū* (compare pl. VII, 33, III), and the *au* in *yau* (31), besides which the older form of pl. II, 28, XVIII, is used, appear here for the first time.
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⁵ Bhaṇḍārkar, Early Hist. of the Dekkan², 26 ff., C.CMI, 3—5; Bhagvānkāl, J.RAS. 1890, 642; Bühler, Die ind. Inschr. u. das. Alter d. ind. Kunstpoesie, 46 ff.
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The letters on the somewhat older coins¹ of Rudradāman's grandfather Caṣṭana and of his father Jayadāman, which probably were struck in Ujjain, exhibit no material differences. Among the later Kṣatrapa inscriptions,² that from Junāgaḍh, incised during the reign of Rudradāman's son Rudrasiṁha, fully agrees with the Girnār Praśasti. The Gunda inscription of the same prince from the year 103 (or, according to the usual assumption, from A. D. 180), and the Jasdan inscription of Rudrasiṁha's son Rudrasena from the year 127 (?) or A. D. 204-205, show a few more advanced characters. Both these documents offer the bipartite subscribed *ya*; and the second has several times the northern *ma* of the Gupta period (pl. IV, 31, I ff), as well as the *e* standing above the line (compare, for instance, *ne*, pl. VII, 27, V). The same *ma*, or a similar sign with a straight base-stroke, appears also frequently on the coins of the later Kṣatrapas.³ Its occurrence probably indicates a northern influence, perhaps that a northern alphabet was used at the same time; compare § 28 below, A.
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¹ C.CMI. pl. 1; J.RAS. 1890, pl. at p. 638; B.ASRWI. 2, pl. 7.
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² Compare facsimiles in B.ASRWI. 2, pl. 20; J.BBRAS. 8, 234; Sanskr. and Prākr. Inscrṣ. Bhaunagar, pl. 17—19 (unreliable).
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³ See the plates cited in note 1 above.