Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s18.1

c7.s18.1

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.