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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s18: § 23. — The acute-angled and Nāgarī types; Plates IV, V, VI

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s18

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§ 23. — The acute-angled and Nāgarī types; Plates IV, V, VI

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About the beginning of the sixth century we find in the northern inscriptions, both of Eastern and Western India (plate IV, cols. X—XII),² distinct beginnings of a new development, which first leads to the forms of the Gayā inscription of A. D. 588-89 (plate IV, cols. XIII, XIV) and of the probably not much later Lakkhamandal Praśasti (plate IV, cols. XV, XVI).³ Their chief characteristic is that the letters slope from the right to the left, and show acute angles at the lower or at the right ends, as well as that the tops of the vertical or slanting lines invariably bear small wedges, and their ends either show the same ornaments or protuberances on the right. These peculiarities are observable in a large number of inscriptions of the next four centuries, and it seems to me advisable to class the characters of the whole group as those of the “acute-angled alphabet.” Formerly⁴ the term “nail-headed” was frequently applied to them. Of late this has been given up and no new generic name has been proposed. Thus FLEET says, in his edition of the Gayā inscription,⁵ only that the letters belong to the northern class of alphabets. Possibly the Indian name may have been Siddhamātṛkā (*lipi*). For Bērūnī⁶ states that an alphabet [50] of this name was used in his time (about A. D. 1030) in Kashmīr and in Benares, while the Nāgarī was current in Mālva. If the usual writing of Benares resembled that of Kashmīr, it cannot have had the long horizontal top-strokes which always characterise the Nāgarī. Bērūnī's note is, however, too brief and vague for a definite settlement of the question.

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² Compare also the facsimiles in FLEET'S Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), Nos. 20, 24, 33, 34, 35, 37, 47, 51, 70, 75, and of the seal of Kumāragupta II., J. ASB. 58, 84.

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³ Compare also the facsimiles in Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), Nos. 72, 76, 78, 79, 80.

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⁴ See, *e. g.*, TOD, Annals of Rajasthan, 1, 700 ff., Madras edition.

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⁵ Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), 274.

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⁶ India, 1, 173 (SACHAU).

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The two inscriptions, mentioned above, which, like the other contemporaneous cognate documents, are connected with the western Gupta alphabet, mark the first step in the development of the acute-angled alphabet during the sixth century. And to the same subdivision belong, among the MSS., the Horiuzi palm-leaves, which according to the Japanese tradition certainly existed in the second half of the 6th century.⁷ If fourteen years ago, when I wrote my paleographical essay on these leaves in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, the facsimiles of the Gayā and Lakkhamandal inscriptions had been accessible, it would have sufficed to compare their letters in order to prove the correctness of the statements of the Japanese.

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⁷ Anec. Oxon., Ary. Series, 1, 3, 64.

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The characters of Aṃśuvarman's inscription of A. D. 635 (plate IV, col. XVII) and of the nearly contemporaneous Aphsaḍ Praśasti of Ādityasena (plate IV, cols. XVIII, XIX) show the further progress of the acute-angled alphabet during the 7th century. It must, however, be noted that Aṃśuvarman's inscriptions and other Nepalese documents of the same time have the round *ṣa* and thus are allied with the eastern Gupta character, while the Aphsaḍ Praśasti and its allies from India proper are connected with the western variety of the old northern alphabet.¹ FLEET calls this second variety, on account of the more marked twist of the lower ends of the strokes, "the Kuṭila variety of the Magadha alphabet of the 7th century."² I feel disinclined to adopt the term "**Kuṭila**," which was first used by PRINSEP,³ and since has been employed by many other writers, because it is based on an erroneous rendering of the expression *kuṭila akṣara* in the Deval Praśasti.⁴ I would remove it from the paleographic terminology. KIELHORN likewise avoids it in his paleographic remarks on various inscriptions of this period.⁵

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¹ Compare also the facsimiles in IA. 9, 163 ff., Nos. 4—10, 12; BENDALL, Journey in Nepāl, 72, Nos. 1, 2; and HOERNLE'S remarks in J.ASB. 60, 85.

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² Gupta Inscriptions (CII. 3), 201, 284; EI. 3, 328, note 1.

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³ J.ASB. 6, 778, pl. 41.

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⁴ EI. 1, 76. In confirmation of my explanation of the phrase *kuṭilānyakṣarāṇi viduṣā*, "by him who knows crooked letters," *i. e.*, letters difficult to read, I would point to Vikramāṅkacarita, 18, 42, where we have the statement that queen Sūryamatī did not allow herself to be cheated *kāyasthaiḥ kuṭila-lipibhiḥ*, "by writers using crooked alphabets."

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⁵ Compare his remarks on inscriptions of this class, IA. 17, 308; 19, 55; 20, 123; 21, 169; EI. 1, 179; 2, 117, 160.

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During the 8th—10th centuries, the development of the acute-angled or Siddhamātṛkā alphabet progresses more and more in the direction of its successor, the Nāgarī alphabet, which latter in its old North-Indian form is distinguished merely by the substitution of straight top-strokes for the wedges on the verticals. Documents with a mixture of wedges and straight top-strokes are also found; and occasionally it becomes difficult to decide how a particular inscription is to be classed.

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To this third and last variety⁶ of the acute-angled alphabet belong the characters of the Multāī copper-plates (plate IV, col. XX) of A. D. 708-709,⁷ of the Dīghvā-Dubaulī plate, probably of A. D. 761 (plate IV, col. XXI),⁸ of the Gwalior inscription of A. D. 876 (plate V, col. II), and of the Ghosrāva inscription of the 9th or 10th century (plate V, col. VI),⁹ as well as, among the MSS., those of the Cambridge MS. No. 1049 (plate VI, col. VII), dated in the year 252,¹⁰ probably of Aṃśuvarman's era of A. D. 594,¹¹ or in A. D. 846. An intermediate position between the acute-angled and the Nāgarī alphabets, is occupied by the letters of the Pehoa Praśasti of about A. D. 900 (plate V, col. III), of the Deval Praśasti of A. D. 992 or 993 (plate V, col. VIII) and of the copper-plates of the Paramāra king Vākpati II. of A. D. 974 (plate V, col. X).¹² They, no doubt, show the wedges; but these are so broad that they produce the same effect as the long straight top-strokes, and that, *e. g.*, the open tops of *A*, *Ā*, *gha*, *pa*, &c., are closed, just as in the Nāgarī inscriptions. Specimens of the mixture of wedges and straight top-strokes, mentioned above, are found in the Rādhanpur and Vaṇī-Ḍiṇḍorī copper-plates of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king [51] Govinda III. of A. D. 807-808 (plate V, col. IV),¹³ and the Harṣa inscription of the Cāhamāna Vigraha II. of A. D. 973 (plate V, col. IX).¹⁴

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⁶ Compare, for this and the preceding varieties, the facsimiles at IA. 2, 258; 5, 180; 9, 174 ff., Nos. 11, 13, 14, 15; 10, 31; 17, 310; 19, 58; BENDALL, Journey in Nepāl, pl. 10, 11, 13; EI. 1, 179; 4, 29; C.ASR. 17, pl. 9; and the autotypes of coins in C.CMI. pl. 3, Nos. 7—14; pl. 6, No. 20; and pl. 7.

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⁷ According to FLEET, IA. 18, 231, "transitional type from which the North-Indian Nāgarī alphabet was soon after developed."

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⁸ According to FLEET, IA. 15, 106, "North-Indian Nāgarī."

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⁹ Compare IA. 17, 308.

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¹⁰ BENDALL, Cat. Cambr. Buddh. MSS. from Nepāl, XLI. ff.; Anec. Oxon., Ary. Series, 3, 71 ff.

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¹¹ S. LÉVI, JA. 1894, II, 55 ff.

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¹² EI. 1, 76; IA. 6, 48.

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¹³ IA. 6, 59; 11, 158; compare also facsimiles in EI. 3, 103, and IA. 14, 200.

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¹⁴ Compare also facsimile, IA. 16, 174.

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The last-mentioned two inscriptions are, however, by no means the oldest documents, in which Nāgarī letters occur. The first undoubtedly genuine specimens¹ are found in the signatures of the Gurjara princes on the copper-plates of Kaira (of A. D. 628 and 633), of Dabhoī (A. D. 642), of Nausārī (A. D. 705), and of Kāvī (A. D. 736),² the texts of which are written in a southern alphabet. In the first-mentioned three signatures, the Nāgarī letters are in the minority, as most of the signs show either more archaic northern or southern forms. Only in the fourth signature the Nāgarī is used throughout and is fully developed. But the most ancient document, written throughout in Nāgarī, is the Sāmāngaḍ grant of the Rāshṭrakūṭa king Dantidurga of A. D. 754 (plate IV, col. XXII).³ Much of the same type are the characters of the Kaṇheri inscriptions Nos. 15 and 43 (plate V, col. V),⁴ which were respectively incised in A. D. 851 and 877 during the reigns of the Sīlāhāra princes Pullaśakti and Kapardin II.

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¹ The genuineness of the earlier Umetā and Bagumrā plates (IA. 7, 63; 17, 199) is disputed (IA. 18, 91 ff.); their Nāgarī letters have been given in *Anec. Oxon., Ary. Series*, 1, 3, pl. 6.

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² See the facsimiles, *J.RAS*. 1865, 247 ff.; EI. 5, 40; IA. 5, 113; 13, 78; and the remarks in *SB.WA*. 135, 8, 2.

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³ IA. 11, 105.

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⁴ IA. 13, 235; 20, 421.

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The Sāmāngaḍ and Kaṇheri inscriptions, together with some others of the 9th century,⁵ show the archaic variety of the southern Nāgarī, the fully developed form of which is exhibited in the copper-plates of Kauthem (plate V, col. XVII),⁶ which were incised during the reign of the Cālukya king Vikramāditya V. in A. D. 1009-10. The southern Nāgarī, of the 8th—11th centuries, which differs from its northern sister of the same period chiefly by the want of the small tails slanting to the right from the ends of the verticals, and in general by stiffer forms, besides occurs in numerous inscriptions of the Sīlāhāras and Yādavas from the Marāṭhā country and the Koṅkaṇ, as well as of a Raṭṭa prince from the Belgaum collectorate.⁷ Its latest development during the 13th—16th centuries is found in the inscriptions of the kings of Vijayanagara or Vidyānagara in the Kanarese country.⁸ It still survives in the Bālbodh or Devanāgarī of the Marāṭhā districts, and in Southern India it has produced the so-called Nandināgarī which is still used for MSS.⁹

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⁵ Compare, e. g., the Ambarnāth inscription, *J.BBRAS*. 9, 219; 12, 334; IA. 19, 242.

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⁶ IA. 16, 15 ff.

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⁷ Compare also the facsimiles, IA. 7, 304; 9, 32; 14, 141; 17, 122; *J.BBRAS*. 13, 1; 15, 386; EI. 3, 272, 300 f., 306 f.

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⁸ Compare the facsimiles, EI. 3, 38 f., 152 ff.; B.ESIP. pl. 30, and the alphabet, pl. 20.

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⁹ B.ESIP. 52 (where the Nandināgarī is derived erroneously from the Siddhamātṛkā), and pl. 21.

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In Northern and Central India, the Nāgarī appears first on the copper-plate of the Mahārāja Vināyakapāla of Mahodaya (plate IV, col. XXIII),¹⁰ probably of A. D. 794, which however exhibits some archaisms and peculiarities in the signs for *kha*, *ga*, and *na*, found also in later inscriptions from Eastern India. The fact that an earlier inscription from the Kanarese country, the incision of which is due to a Brahman from Northern India (see EI. 3, 1 ff.), shows a mixture of Nāgarī and acute-angled letters, makes it probable that the northern Nāgarī was in use at least since the beginning of the 8th century. From the next century, we have only a few inscriptions in northern Nāgarī.¹¹ But after A. D. 950 their number increases, and in the 11th century the script becomes paramount in nearly all the districts north of the Narmadā.

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¹⁰ IA. 15, 140.

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¹¹ See the facsimile, IA. 13, 64.

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The characters of the Sīyaḍoṇī inscriptions from Central India (plate V, col. VII), the dates of which run from A. D. 968, and those of the copper-plate of the first Caulukya of Gujarāt, incised in A. D. 987 (plate V, col. XI),¹² show the forms of the northern Nāgarī of the 10th century. The copper-plates of the Rāshṭrakūṭa (Gāhaḍavāla) king Madanapāla of Kanauj in Northern India, dated A. D. 1097 (plate V, col. XII), the Udaypur Praśasti of the Paramāras of Mālva (probable date about A. D. 1060) in the west of Central India (plate V, col. XIII), the Nanyaurā plates of the Cāndella Devavarman of A. D. 1050 (plate V, col. XIV) and of the Kalacuri Karṇa of Tripura, dated A. D. 1042 (plate V, col. XV), both from the eastern part of Central India, and the plates of the Caulukya Bhīma I. of Gujarāt, dated A. D. 1029 (plate V, col. XVI), give specimens of the northern Nāgarī of the 11th century.¹ Finally, the northern Nāgarī of A. D. 1100—1207 is illustrated by the alphabets of a plate of Jayaccandra, the last Rāṣṭrakūṭa (Gāhaḍavāla) king of Kanauj, dated A. D. 1175 (plate V, col. XX), of the plates of the last Caulukya of Gujarāt, Bhīma II., dated A. D. 1199 and 1207 [52} (plate V, col. XXI), of the plate of the Paramāra Udayavarman of Mālva, dated A. D. 1200 (plate V, col. XXII), and of the Ratnapur stone inscription from the reign of the Kalacuri Jājalla of Tripura, dated A. D. 1114 (plate V, col. XXIII).²

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¹² See above, § 21, p. 44, note 2; compare also the facsimiles at IA. 12, 250, 263; 16, 202; EI. 1, 122; *J.BBRAS*. 18, 239.

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¹ See above, § 21, p. 44, note 2; compare also the facsimiles at IA. 6, 53, 54; 8, 40; 12, 126, 202; 15, 36; 16, 208; 18, 34; EI. 1, 216, 316; 3, 50.

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² See above, § 21, p. 44, note 2; compare, e. g., the facsimiles at IA. 11, 72; 17, 226; 18, 130.

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With the characters of these Nāgarī inscriptions, agree those of the now numerous ancient palm-leaf MSS. from Gujarāt, Rājputāna and the northern Dekhan, the dates of which run certainly from the 11th, and possibly from the 10th century. Cols. XV—XVII. of plate VI. exhibit their alphabet chiefly according to LEUMANN's photographs and tracings of the Viśeṣāvaśyakabhāṣyaṭīkā, dated A. D. 1081, together with some supplements from the Royal Asiatic Society's Gaṇaratnamahodadhi, of A D. 1229.³ But a number of MSS. from Nepāl, belonging to the 11th and 12th centuries, show the northern Nāgarī of the preceding century. And col. XIII. of plate VI. offers a specimen from No. 866, the oldest Cambridge MS. of this class, which is dated A. D. 1008.⁴ Of the same type is the alphabet of plate VI, col. XIV, taken from the reproduction of col. 1 of WYLIE's copy of the Vajracchedikā in Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, 1, 1, plate 4.

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³ KIELHORN, Report on Sanskrit MSS. for 1880-81, pp. VII, 27; J.RAS. 1895, 247, 504; compare also the facsimiles, Pal. Soc., Or. Series, pl. 1, 2, 3, 58; Cat. Berlin Sanskr. und Prākr. Hdschft., Band 2, 3, pl. 1. In the marginal glosses of the Viśeṣāvaśyaka and other MSS., frequently appear other cursive alphabets; see LEUMANN's edition, pl. 35.

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⁴ BENDALL, Cat. Buddh. Sanskrit MSS. from Nepāl, pp. XXIV f., 1 f.; compare also the facsimile, Pal. Soc., Or. Series, pl. 16. According to S. V. OLDENBURG (letter of 7th April, 1897), the alphabet of these Nepalese MSS. is the so-called Lañjā script, in which is written a complete MS. of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, preserved in St. Petersburg.

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