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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s17.t3: C. — The Gupta alphabet in manuscripts

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s17.t3

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C. — The Gupta alphabet in manuscripts

c7.s17.t3.1

Among the types of the Bower MS., which belongs, according to Hoernle's and my own opinion,³ to the 5th century, I have given [**49**] in plate VI, cols. I—IV, only the alphabet of the portion which Hoernle marks *A*, since the published parts of his *B.* and *C.* are not sufficiently extensive for a paleographic enquiry. Its characters differ very little from those of the epigraphic documents of the Gupta period, especially from the copper-plates. The Serifs at the tops of the vertical strokes, however, are made more carefully and nearly throughout worked up with the latter into real wedges. If a letter like *gha* (plate VI, 13, I—IV) has several upstrokes, the *Serifs* are added regularly to all of them. Similarly, the lower ends of vertical strokes more regularly bear *Serifs* or are converted into wedges or little buttons. The greater regularity of the writing is what may be expected in a good MS., the material of which offers fewer difficulties than stone or copper. The invariable use of the *Serifs* has led to the formation of the *ka* (15, IV) with the loop on the left¹ (compare 15, I, III), which appears occasionally in the Bower MS., but is noticeable only later, since A. D. 588-89 (see plate IV, 7, XIII), in the inscriptions. Further, the Bower MS. offers in rare cases, *e g.* in *prayojayet* (fol. 31*a*, 11), an archaic form of the bipartite *ya*. Finally, it makes us acquainted with some signs which, owing to the rarity of the sounds expressed by them, cannot occur frequently in the inscriptions and hitherto have not been traced in those of the 4th and 5th centuries. To these belong the long *Ī* (4, I), in which the upper and lower dots of the ancient sign (compare plate VI, 4, V, VII) have been converted into a straight stroke, and further the short *Ṛ*, which clearly consists of a *ra* and a medial *ṛ* (compare above, § 1; and below, § 24, A, 7), also the *AU* (14, I, II), which fully agrees with the epigraphic character of A. D. 532 (plate IV, 6, X), and the subscript *ṛ* of *nṛ* (34, III) which consists of two *ṛ*, placed horizontally side by side.

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³ *J.ASB.* 60, 92 f. ; *WZKM.* 5, 104 f. The discovery of an inscription of the 7th century with *yu*, EI. 4, 29, makes a modification of Hoernle's argumentation necessary, but does not invalidate

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¹ Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, 1, 3, 76.

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