Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s17.t2.15

c7.s17.t2.15

(12) The *ya* (32, I—IX) is mostly tripartite, but sometimes, particularly in *ye*, *yai* and *yo*, transitional forms with the loop, like the later ones in 32, XIII, XVI, appear, which lead up to the bipartitite *ya*.² The oldest instance of the independent looped *ya* is found in Fleet's No. 59 of A. D. 371, but the Kuṣana inscriptions show the looped subscript *ya* even earlier (see above, § 19, B, 12).