Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s18.7

c7.s18.7

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.