Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c7.s19.t1.6

c7.s19.t1.6

(3) The lower portion of the left half of *A* and *Ā* almost invariably consists of a curve, open towards the left, which first appears occasionally in the Kuṣana inscriptions (see above, § 19, B, 1) and later regularly on the Uccakalpa plates (plate IV, 1, IX). It is preserved in the Bālbodh of the Marāṭhās and is common in the Bombay editions of Sanskrit works. In other late specimens of the Nāgarī, it is replaced by two slanting strokes (plate V, 1, 2, XVI), to which a third, a remnant of an earlier wedge at the foot of the vertical, is added lower down. This form is the parent of the *A*, *Ā*, used in the Benares and Calcutta prints. Up to the 8th century, the long *Ā* is invariably differentiated by the addition of a curve to the right end of *A*. Later, its mark is a downward stroke, which is attached either to the right of the top (*e. g.*, plate IV, 2, XXI) or to the middle (plate IV, 2, XXII) and thus reoccupies the same positions which the corresponding horizontal bar has in the Aśoka edicts.² In the MSS., the downstroke at the top is found even earlier (plate VI, 2, VI).